Revtale: Reader insert
by Mostly Void Partially SOULs
Summary: You were a poor college student just trying to get home to your dorm. Now your the only hope of the whole of Monsterkind's survival underground. This was not suppose to happen. You agree with Garfield, you hate Mondays. ((Reader is Gaster most of the time. Updates on Fridays))
1. Congrats! Your Dead Now!

" _Long ago, two races ruled over Earth: HUMANS and MONSTERS. One day, war broke out between the two races…."_

You sighed as you closed out the game. Another failed genocide run. You are never going to even see the genocide fights if you can't kill Papyrus. Well… that's not true. You had seen them before. You just hadn't played them yourself yet.

It was a moot point. You just couldn't kill Papyrus. You just weren't able to disappoint the larger skeleton brother.

You pulled out your headphones and turned off your laptop. You had stayed late in the student library to study and ended up getting nothing done. There were still a handful of others there with you but it was about time to head back to the dorm. Your physics test was in the morning and you should still eat before bed. And by eat, you were thinking something more along the lines of a sandwich or noodles as opposed to the chocolate bar you had been munching on.

You make sure your laptop is secure in your bag before walking outside. Between the rain that had started while you were inside and the fact that it was going on 9 at night, it was pitch black outside. The rain was coming down in sheets obscuring any light from the lampposts along the street you needed to cross to get to your dorm just a little ways away. You couldn't see any cars coming from the shelter of the awning but that didn't mean much.

You pulled your bag close to your chest to protect your laptop and darted out into the rain. You stopped for a second on the curb to look both ways and started to dart across. You never made it to the other side.

Two-thirds of the way to the other curb, you see the headlights. They are approaching too fast. The person driving must have been going twice the speed limit when they hit you. You barely think the words, 'Well, shit,' before your world explodes in pain and then numbness. You black out and know nothing more.

* * *

You feel your SOUL for the first time as it unshatters. You feel the pieces snap back into place in a slightly different configuration making it all the more noticeable. After a moment you wake up. You are alive and very _very_ sore. You are also still lying on the street. You can hear the car that hit you driving off but there is no other sign that anything happened.

Well, _almost_ no other sign. You internally grimace at the sight of your shattered laptop. That was going to be a bitch to replace. You sigh and pick up your stuff and continue inside to your dorm.

Three flights of stairs later, you unlock your door. Your roommate is already passed out to be at work at 6 in the morning. You both agreed that the job sucked. You proceed to toss your stuff on your desk and started getting ready for bed. You decide on taking your shower now instead of in the morning since you are already soaked.

You grab your shower bag and a towel before walking down the hall. It is when you passed the mirror in the bathroom that you first realized that something was very wrong with you. In your reflect you saw the _bones_ under your skin _shifting_. It was as if you were a skeleton monster wearing an ill fitting human meat suit. You quickly looked around. No one. The bathroom was rather empty right now but you didn't think that would last.

You quickly darted into the shower stall you had been heading for and close the curtains.

You set all your stuff on the bench before pulling out your pocket knife on your keys. Now that you had noticed, you had no idea how you had not seen what was going on with your hands. You take a deep breath and bring the knife to your palm…

…

...It doesn't cut. You forgot that you keep your pocket knife dull as possible to keep yourself from accidentally slicing your fingers open when you use it at work to open boxes. Right. You don't have to psych yourself up the now. This time you jam it forcefully between two of your bones in your hand. It barely goes in but you are surprised to see little to no blood.

You spend the next half hour cleaning away the skin and inner workings from your hand. Even without the tendons, your hand still moves smoothly. After some thought, you decide that you need to do the rest of you. You shed your clothes and pick up the knife again.

It takes hours. When you know the bathroom is empty, you would occasionally dart over to a toilet stall and flush the bits of your skin and muscle to cover up the smell of them rotting once they were off of you. You were glad you decided to do this, the stuff still on you even now was starting to rot now. It wasn't pleasant.

You just had your head left. You had been putting it off since you hadn't wanted to take out your eyes or brain. You clearly didn't need them, you didn't have a heart anymore (or lungs or a stomach or kidneys or a liver, etc) so it was not like they were still working. That of course, raised the question of how the hell you were seeing anything. A true mystery.

Your brain leaked out on its own the moment you removed an eye. You skull structure had changed and there was nothing holding the liquefied brain in place. You were a free skeleton.

…

Now what?

You hadn't really thought this through. You are a skeleton monster, the likes of which the world had never seen before, and you are trapped in a bathroom stall because you have little doubt that anyone who saw you would freak out. You are also tired from pulling an allnighter. And hungry. Whoops. Clearly you were not the best at making good life choices.

Well, lacking a reason to not to, you redress in your jeans and hoodie from last night. They don't fit as well as they had, you had grown a few inches in the past few hours but otherwise they were extra lose. You decide to flip up the hood and at least hide in your room. It would be nice to get some sleep and food.

You have to turn your head a few times to keep people from seeing your face and keep your hands in your pockets making carrying your shower bag and towel awkward. Just as you bring your key up to open the door to your dorm, the door swings open. Your roommate is looking at you face on. Shit.

You snap your hand out over his mouth to prevent the scream that you can see is about to happen. "Damn it, Josh, it's just me. Do you want to wake everyone in the building?" You see him relax at your voice in recognition. You let go of his mouth and push past him.

"Shit, G. You nearly gave me a heart attack. That is the best monster makeup I have ever seen! Is that what you have been up to all night. I noticed you didn't actually sleep in your bed after coming back."

"You could say that…" You toss your shower bag and towel on the floor of your closet. "You're going to be late for work. How about I tell you everything when you get back?"

"I don't want to wait until after your last class ends though." Your last class was later than his today since he only had the one after work and you had one before and one after on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It finally hit you that you had died on a Monday. You related with Garfield. Screw Mondays.

"I'm skipping today and calling in sick to work." You were actually going to just quit but that was not something you wanted to bring up yet.

"But you never miss and you have a test today."

"I know."

"Shit. Now I want to stay."

"Just go to class. It is bad enough I am missing, you don't need to miss too." He reluctantly left after that. You stripped and pulled on fresh clothes. After a bit of thought you pulled out an opened bag of chips. You were hungry, yes, but you had no idea if or what you could eat. They tasted fine, if stale. You were still not sure how you were eating but you clearly could no problem. A thought crossed your mind as you looked at your bag for a moment. Were you a font skeleton like from Undertale? Curious, you pulled out a notepad and wrote your name. You were completely baffled. Somehow, you had written in Wingdings. And you could read it as clearly as any Aster font. Wingdings "Gravity" Aster.

You felt stupid. You were Gaster. That explained a lot while simultaneously not explaining anything. You decided that this was not a train of thought to go down until you had properly eaten and slept. After you tossed the notepad back on the desk, you went back to the bag of chips. Yeah, these were stale. You wanted to toss them but if you really had to quit your job, there was no way you were tossing out food of any sort.

You don't remember nodding off but it must have happened midway through the bag. You woke to Josh shaking your shoulder holding your now discarded bag of chips. "Dude? Are you okay? No offense but with that makeup you look kinda…"

"Dead?"

"Well, yeah. I had to check to make sure you were breathing when I walked in."

You hadn't thought about if you had still needed to breath. Now that you thought about it, you appeared to still be doing it. You wondered if you need to or if it was out of habit. "Well then I have some bad news for you. Uh, you might want to sit down."

He raises an eyebrow at that before plopping down on his bed. "So what's up?"

"Last night on my way home, I got hit by a car in the rain and I am pretty sure I died."

"Very funny, G. Now seriously, what's this about?" He looked frightened. You could tell he believed you. He had watched to many horror movies over the years to not see that you were not wearing any makeup or costume.

"You played my copy of Undertale right?" He looked concerned by the sudden change in topic.

"Ages ago."

"Did you ever look into the fandom at all?"

"Not really."

"Then the name W. D. Gaster means nothing to you?" Josh was looking even more confused now. And still concerned.

"No."

"Damn. That would have made explaining this a bit easier. The short version was that I think that when I died I somehow became Gaster. He is a Font Skeleton monster so when I died my body changed into this. I write in Wingdings now too which is how I figured that out."

"Uh huh." He looked unconvinced. "You know Undertale is just a videogame, right?"

"Yes, but that does change the facts that I know to be true now. Gaster was always an anomaly in space time as far as the fandom knew. If he had been from another world in the first place… If just makes so much more sense."

"So if you are this Gaster guy, are you going to try to get to the Underground or something."

"I guess I have too."

The two of you sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes. "Well, I'm going to the Rec center. Good luck on your quest Gravity or whatever. I'll see you later." He grabs his gym bag and walks from the room and from your life, even if neither of you know it then.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _First chapter done!_ _Welcome to the first fic I have posted since I graduated High school. *tosses confetti* So yeah this is probably going to be the darkest chapter for a while. There will be death and more light level body horror a plenty but not for a while. Chapters will go up ever Monday and Friday hopefully. I am prewriting a few chapters before I post so any comment and suggestions might take a bit to go into effect. Unless I decide to rewrite the whole thing again. Anyways, expect King Fluffybuns next chapter. See you on the flip side. -Void_


	2. Magic Powers Should Come w Instructions

You spend the next half hour trying to learn magic. As it turns out, you suck at it. You successfully conjure one blue bone for half a second before it breaks apart. It is when you try to mess with your own personal gravity to walk on the walks that you accidently discover you can teleport. One second you're in your dorm room the next you're in the Void. You quickly try to undo your mistake and screw up farther.

You come out in the middle of a forest. In the middle of a fight. You startle the human and the fire elemental monster (Grillby?) you pop out next to. The monster recovers faster and burns the human before grabbing you and dragging you out of harm's way. He spins you round to face him. "Where the fuck did you just come from?"

"Language." The response was automatic as your nonexistent brain caught up. The flame monster shot you a look as you actually responded. "Sorry, habit. So I just discovered I can teleport. It is a good day for science."

"That didn't answer my question."

"I think I came from that spot that I appeared in about 3 meter higher off the ground. Just in another dimension. There is kinda a building here where I'm from."

"Right. Another dimension. Of course I would have to find a crazy out here."

You are about to make the argument that you perfectly normal when you remembered you are wearing pajamas with human female leg lamps on them claiming that they are a major award. You love A Christmas Story but you were regretting wearing those pajamas.

"I prefer eccentric."

"I'm sure." The elemental pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on before fishing through the pockets of the now very dead human. "You got a name? Ariel or some other font."

"Wingdings 'G' Aster. I've been called Gaster by a few monsters."

"What's the 'G' for?"

"G is the Universal constant for Gravity. Gravity is also a font but not one I speak. I got tagged with the constant by a few others I know because of how well I know the constant. It was actually an experiment with my blue magic that teleported me here."

"I guess Gravity is a good nickname for someone with Blue magic." He stood back up to his full height again. He was almost the same height as you. "I'm Second Lieutenant Grillby of the Royal Army." Huh, so you were right. He is older than you though he was.

"Is that a first name or a last name?" You had always wondered.

"Yes."

"..."

"..."

"Okay then Grillbz it is." You could see his brow twitch and his flames briefly spiked hotter.

"We're going back to camp. My superior can deal with you." He grabbed your hand and started leading you North. You had to stop every so often to unsnag your pajamas from the surrounding plants. It was a miserable walk. You're sure that if he had been walking alone, the walk back would have taken ten minutes for Grillby. Instead, it had taken close to half and hour. You were so happy to see the other monsters flitting around the outer edge of camp at that you ran the last few feet inside.

"Victory!" You got some odd looks from the various monsters around. Eh. You could be the local crazy person. You didn't really care at this point.

"Do my eyes deceive me? Is that a skeleton? I thought we had lost you all in the massacre a few weeks ago." It was King Fluffybuns himself. Or was it? He wasn't wearing a crown.

"My Prince!" Grillby had just come to a stop behind you. "This is Gaster. He appeared next to me while I was in the middle of dealing with a human attempting to sneak into the camp."

"What happened to the human."

"Their dead. I killed them accidently when Gaster suddenly appeared. I know you wanted us to catch the next one but it was unavoidable."

"Perhaps it is for the best. Dismissed, Lieutenant." Asgore nods before turning to you. "So Gaster was it? That is an unusual name for a skeleton."

"My full name is Wingdings 'G' Aster. A few monsters started calling me Gaster and the name stuck. It is funny since G is technically just another nickname that just became part of my full name."

"Yes it is funny how these things sometimes work out. So where did you come from? As I said before, I thought we had lost all of your kind."

"Would you believe another dimension?" You give him a weak smile.

"Oh?" He looks amused. He was clearly just playing along but the thought counted. This is why you liked goat-dad.

"Yep. I accidently teleported trying to use my magic for the first time. I ended up in the Void between worlds. It... isn't a fun place. I would recommend buying a timeshare there."

Clearly something you did or said made it clear that you weren't lying. Asgore had tensed up. He studied your face before pulling you into a warm and somewhat crushing hug. "You look like you could use a cup of tea. Why don't you join me and my wife in our tent?"

"That sounds lovely." And it was. You enjoyed meeting a younger Toriel as well. She ended up hugging you the moment you walked in the tent. Even if you hadn't already know, you would have realized from that moment that she was going to be a great mother and queen. She was neither at the moment. Asgore's parents, Asghar and Lorei (this explained so much about the naming thing), were still the reigning king and queen but they were planning on passing the crowns on soon.

Still they were both royality. And insisting that you stay in their tent. "We insist. You have no idea how to use your magic to defend yourself and your the last of your kind. We are not letting you out of our sights." You wondered if Toriel was just using the royal we and Asgore was just agreeing to make her happy.

"Fine. But if I can learn how to use my magic, I can move out right?" The last thing you wanted was to be tripping over a still relatively newly wed couple.

"That seems reasonable. You have to understand that we will not ever allow you to join the fighting even if you improve that far."

"I get it. Last of my kind and all." You idly wonder if that is one of the reasons that Asgore at least didn't want Papyrus in the Royal Guard. You guessed you would figure it out. When you figured out where Sans and Papyrus came from.

"Good. We can start your lessons later this evening."

"Wait, what?"

"Who do you think will be teaching you? All the soldiers and Gorey are all too busy. I am just here to act as a healer and so Gorey and I don't have to spend so long apart."

You realized that that made a bit of sense. "Okay, I guess that does make sense. Still, your royalty, this is just a bit weird for me." You knew goat-mom was nice and liked to teach but still…

"If you would feel more comfortable with someone else…"

"No, you're fine. I just am not normally this social so what is normal for most monsters is still a bit odd for me. I was quite happy as a hermit."

"Did you not grow up around other monsters in your world?" You loved how they had more or less just accepted that you were from another world at this point. Monsters really just rolled with things.

"Not really. Monsters were more or less gone in my world. Humans had essentially taken over. Most the people I dealt with on the day to day were human. Hell, I was raised by humans. If it wasn't for the Undernet, I would have gone through life thinking I was alone."

"Undernet?"

"It was a underground communication network made by monsters for monsters. It was hidden deep in the Dark Web. As for the Dark Web, think of it as the dark underbelly of the internet. The internet of course being an artificially created hive mind for the human race that monsters could tap into as well. It was a living archive of all known information."

The Dreemurr's shared a look of 'oh dear, what have we gotten ourselves into.' And in that moment you realized you really _were_ Dr. W. D. Gaster and you had never been happier.

* * *

 _ **Note:**_

 _Short update today. Don't worry. Next week will be a bit of a roller coaster ride to make up for it. On the bright side, some more familiar faces. I decided to add Grillby as one of the monsters from the war as a in the moment thing and he just has sort have become a thing. Next chapter, Undyne's mom! -Void_


	3. G, You Need to Learn Foreshadowing

"Fuck!" You brought your hand up to you mouth to stop the bleeding blood marrow.

"Language." Grillby tapped you with the back of his hand as he walked past your outdoor lab. It had become a bit of a running joke between the two of you as you had spent more time together over the past few months. Asgore had temporarily reassigned the Second Lieutenant to watch you during the first few weeks since he had been the one unlucky enough to find you.

Toriel had said it was unnecessary since you appeared to be harmless, but Asgore had been concerned that you might sympathize with the humans enough to try to send them messages that would endanger yourself and others. You didn't. The humans here had no relation to you and they were all trying to kill you so you couldn't care less if they were all dead. The only "good" human that you knew of from this world was iffy at best. And not even born yet.

You were currently teaching yourself electrical engineering. You had stolen a table from one of the tents and had been collecting the necessary parts to make a set of tools to make a radio. It was not going half bad. You doubted you would hear anything when you turned it on given how the human bodies you had been looting for parts had been dressed but it was one of the few electronics that you had taken apart over the years that you thought you could probably build from scratch.

Grillby returned and set a plate of food next to you. "You didn't eat dinner last night or breakfast this morning. The Princess didn't see you sleep any either."

"Sleep is for the weak." You grab the half of an uncooked potato next to you and jam the two pieces of metal you had just been hammering when you sliced your finger in it.

"I thought when you grabbed that last night you were going to eat it." You hook up the last of the wires.

"It's the battery. For now at least." The radio flares to life in a burst of static. Everyone in camp turns to look at you. "It's alive!"

Grillby slaps his hands over his ears. Or at least where his ears should be. "What the hell is that supposed to be?"

"A radio." You spin the dial and eventually pick up music. You recognized the tune. Gaster's Theme... Interesting but not surprising.

Grillby is staring at the radio completely baffled. "That is your SOUL's tune. How?"

"It picks up higher frequencies and plays them back at an easier to hear level. I just tuned it to pick me up, I'm sure if we spin this dial a bit we could probably find yours."

"...Can we? It is hard to hear your own tune outside of battle." You had already started spinning the dial. You stop on another familiar tune. It's Raining Somewhere Else. That was a bit of a surprise.

"It's different!"

"I should hope so. You aren't in a fight now are you?" Asgore had wandered over. Bergentückung starts to drift from the radio overlapping the other song. You turn the dial ever so slightly to keep it on one song. "I see you still haven't eaten. You might want to correct that before my wife comes over."

You sigh and pick up the plate. The food is delicious as always but you still feel odd eating it. You didn't need to eat as regularly as other monsters but that could just be because of the fact you had been a poor college student before and not used to such large regular meals. "I should probably go to bed too. I pulled an allnighter accidentally again."

"Yes, you should. Shoo. We will make sure no one breaks your…"

"Radio," Grillby supplied.

"Yes, your, radio. It will be here with the rest of your stuff when you wake in the evening." You put the now empty plate down with a nod. Toriel gives you a look of approval as you lay down on the cot set up in the corner of their tent for you. You fall asleep a few minutes of burying you face in your pillow later.

After what felt like no time at all, you are woken my shouting and Toriel shaking you. "We are under attack! We are falling back to Mt. Ebbott, the caves there should give us a place to regroup without being seen." Well shit, you weren't expecting this to happen so soon. You just got here.

You struggle to find you feet and follow Toriel out into the forest. Humans make a show of attacking you at every turn but you can see that they aren't really trying to hard. You are sure that they would be happy if they killed you, but you are sure their orders are to drive the monsters toward the trap and only kill the stragglers. Toriel is clearly too concerned for your safety to notice their odd behavior.

You decide it is best to not say anything. Toriel needed to live or the monsters would never get out of the underground without murdering every human that fell.

The monsters already inside the cave entrance were relieved to see the two of you enter. You could see Grillby and Asgore among them. The last monster that entered before the barrier snapped shut was Captain Gerson. The moment it closed the shouting began. Monsters of every walk of life began attacking the barrier as one. You didn't move.

Grillby didn't either. He was had turned to look at you right after the barrier went down and he _knew_. He flared bright blue. "You knew! You knew this was coming!"

"I knew that it was a likely possibility. It is what happened…"

"This is what happened in your world? Is that why there aren't many monsters?" Toriel, the saint that she was, stepped between you and all the scared and now angry monsters.

You weren't sure if you could lie to this many monsters right now. You had told your half truth and you were sticking with it. "I wasn't sure it it was even something they could do yet. I had hoped to be sure before telling you because I didn't want anyone to panic. Turns out I got here way too late for that. If they have built this barrier they way I think they have, they have been pretty much done with it since shortly after I stumbled into camp."

"So do you know how to get us out of here?" You aren't sure who that was.

"Yes."

"Well, are you going to tell us?"

You shift from one foot to the other. "The only way the break the Barrier is the combined power of seven human SOULs or a human with a Level of Violence of 20. A monster can pass through the barrier however once one human SOUL is collected so they could in theory go through and collect the rest we need then."

"So we're stuck."

"Temporally. The barrier can't be passed through from this side but outsiders can freely enter from what I understand. It is likely designed that way so they can trap more of us down here."

Everyone stood in silence for a moment. "Well, I'm not standing around here for the next decade or so. I'm going spelunking." It was the Undine that you had heard called Lymnad around camp. You suspected she and Undyne were more closely related now than you had first guessed. Admittedly, her muddy colors had thrown you but the build, species, and personality traits were there.

There were murmurs of agreement and a group peeled off to go check the rest of the cave. You sighed in relief and relaxed back against the wall nearest you. The adrenaline was wearing off. Asgore evidently walked over to you. "While I agree that you should have told us all from the start, I understand why you didn't."

"Everyone hates me now."

"I hardly think that is the case. We have been watching you learn who you are over the past few months. We know you just as well as you do. You are a kind monster who puts his curiosity and others before himself. You're also still tired. Why don't you get some rest, I'll keep you company while you sleep."

You nod knowing there is little point arguing. The two of you sit down in the cave entrance and watch as the others move deeper under the careful eyes of Toriel. It doesn't take long for the sound of the barrier to lull you to sleep again.

* * *

Note:

 _What? Something bad happened to G on Monday again? What are the chances? Sorry if you were hoping they would stay surface side longer but all Gaster did for the past few months was sit around camp and try horribly to learn a branch of magic that Toriel was in no way qualified to teach. He has the basic understandings of FIGHTs now though so there is at least that. He will learn how to use his magic eventually. He as all the time in the world now. Or at least the next few centuries._

 _On another note. The cross updating through AO3 has begun. All three of these chapters already here will go up today and from this point on they will update on the same schedule. Username is the same, just have underscores instead of spaces._

 _Next chapter, what the hell is everyone going to eat and drink down here? -Void_


	4. Only Gaster

When you wake again you are in a different room entirely. Asgore or another monster must have picked you up and carried you here in your sleep. You vaguely guessed that this was the larger cavern that would one day become Home and later the Ruins. But that was only a guess. There were a lot more monsters here than had originally been trapped. You had to guess a few thousand from the number of fires dotting the cave.

You were laying next to Grillby, Lymnad and two other monsters you had only met once before. One of them was a male Undine by the name of Morgen and the other an older dog that looked quite a bit like Lesser Dog by the name of Minor. The dog spotted you first. " _Looks like sleeping beauty finally woke up_."

Huh. You spoke dog now. Cool. "How long was I out?"

"About a day. Time is a bit hard to tell down here. There is only a few places you can see the sky." Grillby shoots you a pointed glare.

"Grillby, really? There really is not much he could have done differently. More than half the people in here now were outside when the Barrier went down. It was either stay out there or come in here and wait until they forget we are down here. We are probably all going to live to see to surface again. Humans live, what, 40 years normally? Even Froggits live to be 50. All we have to do is wait them out. That is why you didn't tell us, right Doc? No point." Wow, Undyne had a lot in common with her mother.

"Doc?"

"Oh right, you were still asleep. You the new Royal Scientist unless the last one ends up down here. Since Asgore and Toriel are now King and Queen in the wake of Asghar and Lorei's deaths, you were the first choice since you are the only one with any idea of how the Barrier even works."

"You sleep like the dead by the way. I was sure that you would wake up while I carried you over here." Morgen pokes you with a stick from across the fire.

"Careful. I am keeping the flame hot. The last thing we need is fish dust in our food." Grillby was turning over the pieces of meat in the flame. There were four pieces. Clearly you were not eating here.

"You guys know which way Asgore and Toriel are? I need to talk to them about this new job I apparently have."

"Nope. And you aren't going to look for them either. We have orders to guard you here and make sure you take care of yourself so the whole, sleep for an entire day thing doesn't happen again. Minor is going to go find them to tell you are awake."

He nodded. " _I should go. I'll find something to eat somewhere else._ " He waved and darted off.

Grillby pulled the meat out of the flames and killed the cooking fire since he made it a bit redundant as far as providing light and heat goes. He handed you a wooden skewer. "Now eat."

Even in a cave with little to nothing to use to cook with, his cooking was the best thing you had ever tasted. The noises that the other two monsters were making made it clear that they agreed with your sentiments. "Grillby. Why the fuck are you not a chef for a living. You have a gift."

"Language. And I do want to open my own bar one day. I was just waiting until I had enough gold and the humans were less likely to try to destroy it to build it."

"We are getting you your bar, buddy." Morgen looked at the flame monster with the most serious expression you had seen on him thus far.

You heard the falling of loose rocks as Asgore wandered up to you. "You _are_ awake I see."

You give them a small wave. "What is this about me gaining a doctorate and job in my sleep?"

"We thought it would be for the best. All of the other scientists down here are doctors so we couldn't put you in charge of them with a lesser prefix. I know that Dr. Waul would have gotten even more hung up on that. Besides, your doctorate is in experimental sciences so you can earn you actual doctorate in whatever you want later. I thought that was nice and vague so none of them could contradict you."

"I am an expert in not being an expert. Yeah, I can roll with that. I was teaching myself engineering before but you can't get doctorates in that." You shrug. "Quantum physics it is. I'm sure someone down here will want to learn it eventually besides me." You could teach Sans if you could figure it out for the bits you did already know. Hooray for random googling.

"So are you ready to me your new employees?"

You shrug and get to your feet. You wave goodbye to your somewhat friends and follow the now King. "I heard about your parents." You feel like you should mention it. As a friend.

"This was not how I wanted to become King. I had wanted my parents to live long enough to dust from age not be killed trying to get people to safety."

"I know…" You reached out a hand and rubbed his back. You could feel him shaking slightly. "We'll all be alright. You and Toriel can do this. I will be here to help any way I can." I still was somewhat shocking how fast you had inserted yourself into their lives.

"That means a lot Gaster. You're a good friend." You crested the last rise between you and the small group of scientists. You could tell they were scientists the moment you saw them. Most of them were clearly your senior even if you scaled their ages to match your own projected lifespan. A few of them scoffed when they spotted you.

A cat-like monster glared at you. "This is the new Royal Scientist? You said he would be the best mind for breaking the Barrier, not some child still not out of stripes." You had forgotten you were wearing those in the chaos of the past few days. Toriel had put you in them saying you should wear them until you properly learned how to use magic but anyone who had seen a skeleton monster before would have realized you were fully grown.

"I am hardly a child. I am only wearing this because the Queen told me too."

"Why would she put you in stripes?" A Temmie. A well spoken one too. Interesting.

"Because until he masters his newly discovered blue magic, he could accidentally teleport somewhere he shouldn't." You shoot Asgore a thankful look. He smiles in return.

"You can teleport? Can you teleport outside?" The cat-like monster again. You were beginning to think this was the infamous Dr. Waul.

"No, I don't think so. The Barrier repeals all the magic back in on itself. That is why monsters can't go through. We are made purely of the stuff. I would rather not try now anyways, seeing as I would likely end up inside a cave wall down here or something."

"Well, I will leave you all to get acquainted. I have several more monsters to talk to today. I will be back later with Toriel so we could discuss the issue of food and water long term. See if you can start drawing up plans while I'm gone." And with wave to the seven of you, he's gone.

The moment he is out of sight the cat-like monster starts in on you. "Look, I don't care if the King and Queen put you in charge, I am going to be the one running this show. I have seniority so when I say jump you say how high."

"No." The five others looked at each other nervously. Clearly no one had ever stood up to this jackass before.

" _No?_ "

"No." You look at the others. "Look either we can do this the easy why or the hard way. I can do either but just a heads up, I can be really petty when it comes to doing this the hard way."

"Oh, try me hot shot."

"Alright. So my first act as all of your boss is to pointedly ignore your names. Until anyone give me a good idea I will not be calling you by your name. From now on all guys will be Toby and girls will be Temmie." You bring up your hand to stop anyone from speaking. "-Except you are, from here on, Slagathor. I am nothing if not fair." You grin as her face lights up at your Scrubs joke. Damn you missed that show. A few of the others chuckle a bit at the joke.

"You're not serious right? Won't that be confusing?" One of the Toby's. The one that looked like the small alien like Ficus Licker in MTT in the game. You mentally dub him Ficus Licker Toby.

"Not if you all do your jobs and give me a reason to actually learn your names. If I don't learn your name by a certain point, I might ask Asgore about seeing about potentially replacing you. Just because you are the only fully trained scientist Underground doesn't mean I am out of fresh minds to chose from. Now that the war had come to a grinding halt, a lot of monsters might choose to look into areas of study. Now, about that food problem…"

Needless to say, Asgore and Toriel were happy when they returned to you and the other scientists huddling around a patch of dirt with various plans scratched in it. The best one that you came up with was to use the underground river as a start for trying to grow some experimental plants. In the meantime. Normal plants would be planted in the places where the sun bled through and water would be carted up from the river.

Everyone was surprised by the revelation of the fact that there was a river at all. Apparently you were the only one that had know that at the time. This lead you to leading the expedition to find the river. It wasn't exactly hard. Apparently the monsters that been exploring the section of the cave that lead into the main cavern had not wanted to cross the small ravine in the floor shortly after you entered the main room and turned around. The one that Papyrus would one day build a too large wooden gate over. You could easily hop it and did so. It was a short walk to the river from there.

Seeing Snowdin sans the trees and snow was… odd. You wondered briefly how the microclimate emerged. "You're doing it again." You turn and raise a brow bone at Grillby. You wondered why he had wanted to come. Flame elementals and water didn't mix.

"Doing, what?"

"Thinking too hard about something."

"Oh." He gestures for you to explain. "I was thinking about with how large this room is, it is possible that we could set up microclimates to make everyone more comfortable."

Jackass Toby, who had been taking a water sample to check if it was safe to drink as is, looked up. "I will admit that is not a completely horrible idea."

Slagathor shot him a look. "Why would it be? The King put him in charge for a reason." This was the reason all the girls were Temmie. Well, the other two anyways. You liked this girl already. Asking the right questions.

"Because it could go horribly wrong in an unexpected way." The Bright Temmie (bunny monster).

"Exactly! 10 points to the Girls! Guys? You're making us look bad, can one of you tell me what could be one possible thing that a microclimate could cause that woulds be considered going 'horribly wrong in an unexpected way'?"

Handy Toby (the large armless monster that looked actually like a larger and paler Monster Kid) slowly raised his left foot. You point at him. "Yes?"

He plops back down to both feet. "The differences in temperature at the edges of the micro climates could lead to cave ins."

"Excelent! 5 points to team Toby. Now I was thinking we could prevent some of that by keeping a temperature and _moisture_ gradient. But we can figure that all out later, we have crops to sort out."

You turn and walk down the river a bit. Far enough to give them the illusion that you can't hear them anymore. "The fuck was that?" You have to struggle to not react to Grillby's cuss. He had followed you down.

"Language."

"I'm serious. I have never seen my older cousin intimidated by anyone but she hasn't said a single word to me around would because you freak her out so much."

Ah, so the mysteriously quiet Temmie you had been calling Timid was his cousin. Noted. "I was channeling my inner Dr. Kelso." Man you really missed television. And netflix.

"Who is Dr. Kelso?"

"The most evil human I know of. He was also one of the best teachers. I gave them a choice when I met them how I would act around them. They choose this. Or at least, Jackass Toby did."

"Jackass Toby?"

"I am making them earn back their names. So far Temmie is the only one who is going to get hers back anytime soon but I think she likes her fairness name of Slagathor more so I will still probably call her that."

"Slagathor? You know what- no. I don't want to know." He wandered off.

You started to listen to the other group. " _-not that bad Waul._ " You hadn't heard that female voice before. That must have been Grillby's cousin.

"Not that bad? Cinder, what have you heard of his accomplishments or qualifications before Asgore put him in charge? I'll tell you. Nothing. That monster is probably just a soldier from Asgore's division that he was leading. Or maybe he was a diplomate. It doesn't matter. All that matters is he had no idea what he is doing." You really weren't ever going to call Jackass by his actual name at this rate.

"That could just be because his font is not easy to understand. You saw the notes he was making in the dirt of the floor a little while ago. Those letters looked more like pictographs than normal handwriting." You really did like Slagathor.

"Chang has a point. I have met font skeletons before and not all of them have the most legalable primary font." Handy's comment made you smile slightly. You finished collecting your samples. You were fairly certain already the water was safe after filtering through so many feet of stone but you had to make sure for the good of everyone down here.

"I doubt his font could be bad enough that no monster would have heard something about him."

"Oh, you'd be surprised. Wingdings is a terrible font when you what to be taken seriously." They all flinch as one as you walk back over. "The sound carries wonderfully in here by the way. Congrats Dr. Chang, you have your name back."

Slagathor blinked in surprise. "Just like that?"

"Just like that. You asked all the right questions and when your colleague started to insight trouble, you used logic to point out something that should have been rather obvious to him. Honestly, I am surprised it took so long for one of you to do it. It has been, what, close to five hours now?"

Slagathor blinked a few times before falling to the ground laughing. You grinned. Yeah, you could do this.

* * *

 _ **Note:**_

 _Welcome to the longest chapter so far. This is the product of me rewatching old TV shows on Netflix. Not much to say other that I should have gotten this up sooner but I forgot to do my prep work for uploading last night. Whoops. Next chapter, is it cannibalism if a former human that is now a monster eats a human?_


	5. Soilent Green is People

The next few years would be the hardest of your life. With the water issue sorted out so quickly, some of the refugees thought you would be able to find a why to solve the food situation before everyone dusted from starvation. Unfortunately you were not a miracle worker. Until the first harvest of the crops came in there was little to eat outside of the dying bat colony. The little winged devils were hard to catch and barely worth eating with so little meat on them. Especially since they were starting to starve to death inside the Barrier too.

You were struggling to find a new possible solution when disaster struck. A massive cave in at the original entrance that dusted five monsters and destroyed the bulk of the conventional crops that had been growing. Monster kind was depending on the experimental mushroom crop now. If it didn't make it, this timeline was screwed.

You were the hungriest you had ever been. You had lost bone density in your current state of self starvation. You had been giving half the food given to you to Dr. Bluebell, your bunny-like employee to help her feed herself and her young kid. Or was it kit? Regardless, she had been struggling in the loss of her husband to care for them. You had just been happy to help.

You were currently stargazing at the one spot left you could do so. You felt silly laying in the middle of the potato patch but you were hardly to only monster to do this. Honestly, you were surprised you were the only one doing it presently.

You squinted. Was something moving at the edge of the hole?

A torch appeared at the top of the hole like a beacon. A human was at the edge! You were on your feet in moments never once looking away from the flame.

The human was wary of the edge. Suddenly a second head poked over and then a third with a second torch. _What were they doing?_

You question was answered almost immediately. Something large had been tossed down to you. You panic as it falls and try to catch it with your magic. You can't let whatever it is crush the crops. It slows its descent and stops a few feet above you. You nearly dropped it on yourself when you see what it was.

Hovering in the air, a few feet above your head, is a _human corpse_. And it looks like it could be _delicious_. You feel sick that the thought even crossed your mind but you and the rest of the Underground need food. What is a dead human but extra protein?

It feels wrong.

You carefully lower the body to the ground outside the field and go to find someone. Anyone. You can't handle the fact that you are on the verge of becoming a cannibal of sorts. You find a Froggit quickly enough and ask them to go find either Asgore or Toriel and bring them back to the skylight.

When you enter the room again there are three more bodies crushing the crops. At a loss you just sit down and watch as the next one falls and the next and the next and the next…

You don't hear Asgore enter but you do hear Gerson's panicked laugh. "Well that is one way to solve the food problem."

" _Soilent Green is people…_ " You mutter. "We need to be honest about what everyone will be eating if we do this. If the humans up top keep tossing bodies in here like this at least every few months, pretty soon we won't be dependent on it as a food source."

"You say that like everyone would be surprised. What do you think we were eating the last few months on the surface for meat? No one was going out and hunting animals or raising livestock anymore." You could feel yourself turning green. You had already _been_ eating humans.

"Gerson, I didn't tell him for a reason." Asgore shot him a look before walking over to comfort you. "I am sorry for the deception but we felt it necessary for your continued physical and mental wellbeing."

"It's fine." It wasn't. "I understand." You did understand. It didn't make it any better. At least you felt a little less conflicted about eating the human remains.

* * *

The surface humans kept tossing dead bodies down following major battles between themselves. Your cave had become the site of a massive grave for them. Some monsters theorized it was only a matter of time until they tossed a live person in the grave to dispose of them. But you knew it would be a while yet. Toriel and Asgore had just announced they were expecting a child. Asriel was a few years old when the first human was set to fall so you had a few years to wait still.

In the meantime, you were overseeing the growth of another successful harvest of glowing mushrooms. A lot of monsters were still uncertain about eating a food that glowed with magic in response to being touched, but food was food and there was not a lot to go around.

Dr. Gray (the Ficus Licker Toby) followed you as you walked the rows. He was carrying your notes and writing for you. All the scientists rotated through the job of Gaster note taker, not become you couldn't do it yourself but because they had quickly gotten annoyed with having to decode everything you wrote. It was currently his shift. "The max height for this crop appears to be about 18 cm."

"Do you think we can push it to 20, Dr. Gaster?"

You shake your head. "We are already pushing the growth of them growing them in such a nutrient poor area. I expect the group up ahead is doing better. We planted it right under where the bat colony used to be."

"Why would that make a difference?" You often forgot that what was general information that everyone knew back home, only a few monsters down here would know if any.

"Animal feces make good fertilizer. And bat guano is some of the best out there."

"...Dr. Waul thinks you were a farmer before we all got trapped down here. Some of the skeletons were so it makes sense and you do know a lot about taking care of plants and water resources for the long term."

You laugh at that. Asshole had not given up then. This is why you still were not calling him by his name to his face. "Ah, yes, a farmer would know that the cave was formed as a lava pocket just by looking at the type of rock and the shape of the room."

His eyes bugged out. "We're in a volcano! Why haven't you said anything about it!"

"Because I'm pretty sure it isn't going to erupt any time soon and I have an idea that could prevent it from happening entirely. I figured there was no point bring it up until everyone wasn't starving. We don't have the resources yet to deal with it yet anyways."

"We are going straight to the King and Queen with this now. No putting it off. They can decide how important it is to deal with."

You end up laughing a lot internally when Asgore agrees with you. He had figured out you were in a volcano just as fast as you had from his history lessons on the area. He had planned to bring up the issue once the food supply was stable and was relieved that you had known about the problem already. He was curious about what your idea was to solve the issue but you pointed out that it didn't really matter at this point.

You would cross that bridge when you had enough food to actual build infrastructure down here. He just nodded and asked about the crops. After a longer discussion about the upcoming harvest, you and Dr. Gray left with the older doctor feeling conflicted. Everything he had thought he knew about how the world was run was wrong. This was a whole lot of politics and he had no idea how that game was played. He was just glad it was about time for Dr. Bluebell to relieve him. He had to tell the other scientists what he had learned.

* * *

 ** _Notes:_**

 _I'm scrambling to get this up before I head out to work this morning. I wasn't suppose to work until this afternoon and now I am working all day. I hate being an adult. Next Chapter, Baby Asriel!_


	6. My Kingdom for a Mattress

Buildings were popping up around the Underground. The King and Queen had built a small home at the entrance to the main cavern. You had been moved in at their insistence. They had refused to let one of their best friends remain homeless when everyone else was moving into proper homes.

All your fellow scientists had either moved in with other family members or close friends. You didn't have any family and as far as friends…

Well you supposed that besides the Royals and your coworkers, Grillby was the only other monster you spent time with. And you clearly annoyed him. You needed to get a social life.

You turned around the small bedroom. You had shoved your bedding in one corner and a stone table in another. You had started growing trees in the new microclimate that would one day be Snowdin Forest. The need for wood had demanded it.

The microclimates were all working wonderfully, as you knew they would, and they had encouraged a few monsters to move out into the larger cavern. Asgore had been tossing around the idea of moving the capital of Home, as he had of course named the smaller of the two caverns, to a large plateau in the main one. You had been able to figure out that it was the future location for New Home in the game, so you had backed the idea, but most monsters were not so sure about the location.

Most monsters were still scared by the fact that you were all in a volcano so moving right next to the magma did not appeal to really anyone but a handful. No one but Asgore and maybe Toriel believed you when you said that it was all perfectly safe. You were pretty sure that the magma would not suddenly flash flood the chamber. That was not how volcanos worked the last you checked.

Over the first few months you had had Grillby help you check the level of the magma to see if it was rising any. After 20 months of it remaining unchanged, you were pretty sure the volcano could be considered dormant essentially. Of course, no one else seemed to agree with your thoughts looking at the magma.

You plopped back in you bed. You missed having a real one. You had just started to drift off went Lymnad crashed through the door. "It's a boy!"

You shot up wide awake now. "When?"

"A few minutes ago! They were on their way back here from Gerson's when she went into labor. We had to move her into a nearby house. I'm just spreading the word." She ducked out and you started to hear cheers going up all over the cavern.

"Asriel…" You grin.

* * *

 ** _Notes:_**

 _A Wednesday update? This is going up later in the day than I had planed since I have a bad case of food poisoning but I thought since this was such a short mini chapter it could go up before the proper chapter on Friday. Don't worry I should still get it out on Friday even sick. I just need to finish a bit of proofing on it and It should be good to go. Monday's Chapter however might be delayed. I will let you guys know on Friday._


	7. Who's a Cute God of Hyperdeath?

You were a godfather. You had know this was probably going to happen with how close you and Asgore had become lately but you still could hardly believe it. You could feel yourself grinning like an idiot as you held the small fuzzy baby that would one day be the God of Hyperdeath. Fuck, he was a cutie.

You were currently watching him while Asgore and Toriel took a well deserved break. You were also slightly avoiding doing paperwork. Paperwork always took an extra long time for you since you had to make the extra effort to try and write in your secondary font, Aster, the whole time. Unfortunately for you, you often couldn't tell when you switched fonts. So you had to have someone proof your work a few times (read a few hundred times) before you got it right.

Asriel let out a small cry before starting up with spirit. You grab the bottle next to you and offer it to him, silencing him once more. "Now, if only that would work on Dr. Waul."

"Hillarious, sir." Speak of the devil. If you hadn't been holding Asriel, you would have jumped. As it was, you still flinched pretty badly.

"Ah, Waul, what brings you all the way up here?"

"I found all the paperwork you are avoiding. I am starting to see the issue of your handwriting," you raise a brow bone at that. He was the only reason you were not dictating everything you needed to write. "Some of these pieces of paperwork are a year old now and are still untouched. Even with your habit of sneaking away to avoid doing work, you would still be months behind if you hadn't been." He sighs.

"Does that mean the great Dr. Waul admits he didn't actually know something?"

He tossed his arms up in the air, tossing the paperwork with them. "I don't know anything about you! You're a nobody font skeleton from _somewhere_ that is good enough friends with the King to be named godfather to the Prince and just when I think I have you figured out, you will say something that will throw us all for a loop. It's madding!"

You use magic to secure Asriel before freeing as hand to pat him on the head. "There, there. I know you're frustrated not knowing where I come from, but I have told you a few times now that I only met the King and Queen a few months before the Barrier fell. And, up until that point I had met few other monsters. It was my complete lack of proper socialization that made them pity me so much I think."

"Yeah, they _pity_ you." His ears had rotated back in annoyance. "They adore the ground you walk on Gaster. I have never seen them act like this around anyone else except each…" He trails off and his eyes bug out. "You're sleeping with them!"

"Wait, what?" That was a new one and it completely took you off guard.

"You are sleeping with them! Or at least King Asgore. Shit. Is the Prince actually yours?" Okay this was not funny in a completely funny way. You had never even thought about Asgore or Toriel in such a way because, let's face it, you were just as much a filthy shipper as Alphys and you thought the two of them together was the sweetest thing ever. The fact that some monsters clearly thought you were sleeping with one or maybe both of them on the side actually bothered you. A lot.

"No. I am not sleeping with them. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind that people might think that until you brought it up. Now I am going to have to have a very awkward chat with the King and Queen when they return later for _their_ son, so _thanks_ for that."

Waul looked like he had more to say but a glare on your part silenced him on the topic. Finally he moved on to the paperwork he had brought with him. He had you dictated to him as he worked through the stack. He was helping you with the latest page when Asgore and Toriel returned. He quickly picked up the papers and bolted.

"Well that was odd. Normally, Dr. Waul does everything he can to try to talk to us," Toriel noted.

"He brought something up earlier to me and he is a bit concerned about the potential fallout."

"Oh? And what is that?" Asgore carefully lifted the sleeping baby from your tired arms.

"Well, he brought up the fact, that we spend enough time together privately that people think that we are sleeping together. And it is bad enough that he accused me of being Asriel's actual father."

Both of the boss monsters flushed red at that. "Oh dear."

"Yes, that is a bit of an issue there. I doubt the fact that I live with the two of you is helping my case any."

"No I suppose not. We aren't going to kick you out over such an outrageous rumor if that is your concern though."

"I doubted you two would. Which is why I am kicking myself out. The lab is just about done in the Hotlands region," you still thought it was a silly name but it was the name Asgore had picked and it was the name that lasted up to the time shown in the game. "I will move in once it is ready for me to do so."

"You don't have to do that. We love having you here, Gaster and so does Asriel."

You roll your eye lights. "Asriel is less than a year old. I doubt he will notice. Besides just because I will be living on the other side of the Underground doesn't mean I can't visit. If anything I am more motivated to learn how to teleport so I can take short cuts from the Lab's location to here and back."

"If you're sure. The last thing we need is you getting lost teleporting…."

"Don't worry, I've got this."

* * *

Two weeks later when you tried to teleport back home from the construction site in Hotlands, you realized exactly how much you didn't have this…

* * *

 ** _Notes:_**

 _So this is later than expected but not for the reason I was expecting. I just got hired on a contract job! While getting my car inspected. As you do. What is my life._ _In case, people are wondering, Gaster is not going to be romancing anyone here. Unless you guys really ask for it he is going to be a single Dadster for Sans and Papyrus when they turn up. Later... Eventually... Next Chapter, Chara?_


	8. Spontaneous Time Travel?

You did end up appearing exacting in the spot where you had intended (right beside the front door of the small home in Home), but…

Something was different. The stone around you appeared to be more worn down and there were cracks from where the stone was no longer being magically maintained. The stone had lost some of the faint glow it had gained over the past few years. And when you turned you were shocked to see a dead fully grown tree behind you where you had just planted a experimental seed two days before.

"Huh." Before you could ponder this much more, Toriel appeared from the otherside leading a scared human child. They looked to be maybe ten at the oldest or perhaps eight at the youngest. They had long messy brown hair and fearful brown wore a painfully familiar striped sweater of blue with lavender.

Frisk. But no, something wasn't right.

Just behind the two of them you spotted another two figures stroll into sight. They were also human in appearance and they resembled the fallen child strongly. One wore the same clothing as the fallen child and the other….

Their green and yellow sweater. Their paler skin and red eyes. This was Chara, and neither they, nor Frisk was in control of their shared body. What was going on?

Before you could puzzle this out, Toriel passed you into the house, as if you were not even there. You blinked in surprise at that. Another mystery.

The child (or was it the children?) approached you. None of them could see you, you realized as the child reached through you and grabbed at something. You felt a slight tug at your soul. Chara and Frisk's eyes suddenly snapped to yours in surprise but the Child itself betrayed no reaction to your presence.

You remember briefly the Save here and have a sudden moment of clarity. " _Seeing such a cute, tidy house in the RUINS gives you determination._ " There is a feeling of a snap, like a cord breaking under high tension, and reality seems to right itself.

You are back in your present. There is the faint sound of Asgore laughing inside and the smell of dinner is wafting out to you. You have a lot of questions and not a lot of answers about what just happened.

Your stomach growling makes you decide that your thoughts can at least wait until after dinner. If that was the future like you were sure it was, than it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

* * *

You don't end up getting around to trying to figure out what happened until sometime later after it happens again. You had managed to teleport around a few different places just fine in the meantime and it hadn't happen again so you had started to wonder if it was just a one off thing. So when you decide to teleport from the front of the house to the front of the Labs while you moved in, to make things easier on yourself, you were rather surprised.

The sudden appearance of the CORE in the backdrop was all you needed to understand what was happening. "Ugh, again?" You shifted the box you were holding to your right side and looked for the kid. Ah, there.

The child was still being followed by the two ghostly counterparts. Chara looked mostly annoyed at this point and Frisk looked… hot? You had to guess that while they clearly weren't driving, they were still feeling the heat. The two looked a bit puzzled by you as you waved at them when you suddenly felt the tug at your SOUL. They weren't surprised at your appearance so much this time you note.

" _Seeing such a strange laboratory in a place like this… You're filled with determination._ " It was as if you had spoken some hidden password to reset things. You were back in the present once more. You readjusted the box and wandered inside.

"Dr. Gaster!" Dr. Waul ran up to greet you when you entered. "We have finished setting up that equipment you asked for. Are you going to tell us what this big project you have planned is that you made us build our Lab in the Lava?"

"Waul. For starters, we are still underground so it is not lava, it's magma. Secondly, I need to set this stuff down in my office. Then I can get to explaining my idea for powering the whole Underground."

* * *

Once again. You didn't get to ponder the mystery of what had happened. The chaos of explaining the CORE sent yo into a work frenzy that you would not surface from for more than a day or two at a time at Asgore and Toriel's insistence.

You slowly found you were missing Asriel growing up. You would have missed his birthdays if it wasn't for the other scientists dragging you from the Lab under royal orders. You had fully embraced everything it was being the Royal Scientist and that meant you were teaching yourself remedial calculus, biology, chemistry, and physics. You were also inventing a whole lot as you went along.

You learned a lot over those years and slept little. You needed to figure this out before Chara fell and you had to shift focus again. You had to get this. Finally, the day came that you handed Asgore and Toriel the finalized CORE plans.

"CORE. Does that stand for something?" Asgore was just skimming. You knew he trusted you enough that you wouldn't have given him anything you weren't certain on. At least, when you were fully rested.

"Not really. I thought, 'Really Big Geothermal Generator' or RBGG was a bit hard to use in everyday conversation and I know you like simpler names that get the idea across. I thought we'd leave it in all caps so people would _think_ it stood for something fancy."

Toriel giggled at that as he blushed. "I think that would be a fitting name with everything else."

Before you could begin to discuss details, the door slammed open. It was Lymnad breathing hard. "A Human child has fallen. Your kid is with them making friends at the Skylight. Gerson sent me to tell you. The Human is pretty banged up but they are alive."

"Take us there now." You follow. If Chara has fallen you have a whole lot you have to do…

* * *

 ** _Notes:_**

 _Guess who rewrote this whole chapter like 12 hours ago. This chick. The old version did not flow into Friday's update well so I had to rework it. So there is now a "Lost chapter" floating around on my computer. It is probably for the best. The first one was pretty awkwardly written._


	9. Enter the First Fallen Human

You almost snapped at Asriel for moving Chara when you saw how hurt they were. Their shoulder was visibly dislocated and their right side of their face was coated in blood from an open head wound. You and Toriel descend on the small child without any hesitation. "I'll repair any broken bones and fix the shoulder. You focus on the bleeding internally and externally."

Her eye's flick to yours for a moment to confirm you were sure about doing this. You had never healed anything like this before. You don't hesitate even when Chara pulls back in fear of the two of you. Well, mostly you, you suppose. You were the walking, talking skeleton after all.

You grab their shoulder and arm firmly. "Now I am not going to lie, this will hurt. Your shoulder is out of its socket. In order for this to heal and stop hurting, I need to put it back in place. It will start feeling better after though."

Chara blinks slowly and then nods. "Okay."

You yank sharply and there is a pop. The child screams and Asriel screams in panic that you are actually going to hurt them. "Asgore. Take your son away for a bit. He can see his new friend again when we're done. This will probably just be stressful for him."

"Thank you Gaster," You hear Toriel mutter beside you. You ignore her and resume setting bones. The kid had several cracked ribs and a broken clavicle. The internal bleeding from the broken bones would have killed them soon enough if the shock hadn't. Or maybe a punctured organ.

Chara's cries of pain slowly calm as the bones are knit back together. You stop short of fully repairing them knowing that magically healed bones would be weaker than naturally. You shift to healing the internal damage with Toriel. She had a lot of ground to cover when she had started but she was close to finished now. Together you finished in less than a minute.

Once you're done you release the child fully into Toriel's care who starts fretting over the child immediately. Chara looks immensely confused. You're just happy you don't have to do any convincing to get Toriel to take the child under her metaphorical wing, not that you were surprised in hindsight. Toriel had always hated seeing children getting caught up in the conflict back up on the surface, so there was no way in hell she was going to allow the SOUL of this child to be taken prematurely. Even if it meant a few more years underground for the rest of us.

Some monsters would not be happy they would likely not get to live to see the surface again but they would have the knowledge their children would. That was HOPE there.

* * *

"Dr. Gaster?" "Uncle Gaster?" You woke up in one on the arm chairs in the living room in Home with two children on your lap. You did not remember falling asleep in the chair but the papers littering the floor around you that you had been working on before you had point out you had clearly dozed off. You hoped they would not tell Toriel that you had fall sleep while you were supposed to be watching them.

You rub your eye sockets. "What is it?"

"Why are you so different than Mom and Dad and me? I heard some of the guards call us all 'the last Boss Monsters' but you look completely different than us." You were a boss monster? Now you really wondered about Waul's lack of self preservation when it came to his pride. That or maybe only some monsters could tell at a glance. You hoped it was the latter.

"Well for starters, Boss Monster is a classification of type of monster not species. There were plenty of your species of monster and my own before we all got trapped behind the behind this Barrier. Your parents and you are a type of goat-like monster, while I am a font skeleton.

"Font skeleton?" Chara raised a brow at that.

You gave the children a smile and magically reached to the floor past them. You picked up a sheet covered in your notes, both Wingdings and Aster for some of your colleagues. You point to your dominate font. "This is the Wingdings font. It is a symbolic font and is rather hard for a not font skeleton to read. It is also unfortunately my Primary font meaning, when I write, I write with this by default."

"Can you write our names? I want to see what they look like." Asriel was practically bouncing in your lap. You weren't surprised. He was only six.

"Sure. Can you get me a fresh sheet of paper and something to write with? I seem to have lost my pen in my sleep."

They were off your lap in a flash. You chuckled and started to clean up your papers. They returned just as fast has they vanished. "Okay. Let's move to the table." You set the paper down and take the offered pencil. "I am going to write your names first in all capital letters like so-" You wrote **ASRIEL** _(hand in peace sign, teardrop, sun, high five, point left, frowny face)_ and then wrote **CHARA** _(thumbs up, point down, hand in peace sign, sun, hand in peace sign)_. "-And now I will do your names in lowercase." You wrote out **asriel** _(cancer sign, small elongated black diamond, box with white side in lower left, pisces sign, scorpio sign, black circle)_ again below the first one and did the same with **chara** _(virgo sign, aquarius sign, cancer sign,box with white side in lower left, cancer sign)_.

"That is so cool!" You aren't surprised with how impressed Asriel is. He has always thought you were the coolest thing since sliced bread.

"It's alright. Can you write your name?" Chara is hiding how impressed they are behind their poker face but you have the advantage of having also been human. They slowly lowered their guard after a few days when they realized most monsters didn't deal with humans other than fighting that were trapped down here.

You sign your name in wingdings rather fast and fluidly. You have signed to many things over that past few years. **W D GAster** _(circle cross, thumbs down, point up, hand in peace sign, small elongated black diamond, elongated black diamond, scorpio sign, box with white side in lower left)._ "I have to sign a lot of papers as the royal scientist."

"How do you draw that so fast?"

"Practice. I have written my name more times than I can count."

Chara narrowed their eyes. "Why is the A in your last name a capital letter? Shouldn't it be that double swoopy circle thing?"

"It would be if it was actually the second letter of my last name. My last name is actually Aster. I had an extra letter for a middle name and over the years it just sort of ran into my last name. By the time I met your parents I had just started introducing myself as Gaster to save time. G Aster and Gaster don't sound all that different anyways."

"Aster?"

"Aster is my secondary font. It is a bit more legible." You write your name again in Aster. "They are generally your family's font. It is often the font passed down from one of the parents to the child. It is basically a fail safe so font skeletons can write things to non font skeletons. Family fonts are generally legible to everyone by nature while primary fonts are inherently random-"

"Inherently?" Right you were talking to six year olds not your peers.

"Inherently basically means essentially."

"Then why not use essentially?" Chara was on a roll today.

"Habit mostly. I am used to talking to scientists all day and they like technical talk with fancy words that make them feel smarter."

"Just because they know a lot doesn't meant they are smart."

You chuckle at that. Damn you liked the kid a lot. You really hoped this kid wasn't really the cause of the genocide timelines now. "That is something I often have to remind them. Had I ever told you two of how I made them earn their names?"

They shake their heads and you grin before launching into the tale of the early days of the barrier, leaving out some child inappropriate material such as eating human corpses and such. If they noticed that you were skipping over things, they didn't comment, so enthralled in your story telling. When Toriel returned a few hours later to relieve you from you baby sitting duties, the three of you were all asleep together this time in the arm chair you had relocated back to.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _I know this is going up later in the day than normal. Sorry about that. I have had to run my narcoleptic brother around town all day unexpectedly. Threw everything off. Next chapter, more baby sitting by someone who can't even take care of himself._


	10. Mission Impossible Theme Plays Quietly

Chara, you decided, was a cute kid. They however were not cute enough to keep pulling this kind of shit.

You had woken up in your office/bedroom in the Labs after passing out from another all-nighter to find the kid and their "goat-bro" sneaking in. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if you had been babysitting them and left them temporarily with one of the scientist to take a nap. You had not been the one watching them today however. In fact, you had not been bringing them to the Labs since the construction of the CORE started do to the heavy machinery that now littered the floor as you manufactured parts on the grand scale.

They were not supposed to be here until it was safe enough again. It was barely safe enough for you and your staff most days, you couldn't afford them being underfoot. "Ehem." You made a clear throat clearing noise startling them.

"Uncle Gaster!" "Dr. Gaster!" You were starting to wish Chara called you Uncle too now that they were calling Toriel and Asgore Mom and Dad.

"Just what do you two think you are doing here? You're a long way from Home."

"We hadn't seen the Lab in a while. We wanted to see what you were working on."

"Dad said it was important but he never would explain anything." Chara complained.

"That would be because you father only ever skims my detailed written reports. If that. He trusts my judgment will not blow us all up so he can focus on other areas that need more supervision like the moving of the Capital. As for what I am doing here, I am building something that is rather dangerous for the two of you to just run about and in between." You give them both you best disapproving look.

They both look rather embarrassed. "Can you not tell our parents we snuck out here at least?"

"Oh no. I fully intend on telling them that you managed to cross half the Underground unsupervised and then snuck in here. I will also be having a word with my staff about how you managed to get all the way to the bottom level on your own without anyone stopping you."

This was the part that concerned you the most. While, yes the trip to the Lab was not exactly the safest trip ever, that was something you could see them doing easily enough. What you could not see was them finding the service elevator and riding it down without help. The majority of the Labs were inaccessible unless you took it and you had to even know about it to use it in the first place.

You had the designed the Labs like this for safety reasons. It keep the majority of monsters from walking in on dangerous experiments or tripping over dangerous equipment. The fact that this was how the True Lab in the Game had been designed had actually slipped your mind until you looked at the final map of the rooms of the bottom floor. It had just made sense at the time and it still did. You had reached the point where the Game was factoring less and less into what you did anyways. A good thing too, since with how many decades had passed now, it was getting harder and harder to remember the fine details.

The kids eventually admitted that they had help sneaking in, Dr. Pialtal (the armless yellow orange reptile monster) had found them on the upper level and brought them down to your door. He had been planning on waking you so you could take them home and tell their parents when they made a break for it when the elevator doors opened. As far as they knew, he was still looking for them.

You sigh and pick them up, aided slightly with your blue magic. The two of them laugh slightly as you hover them in the air down the hall behind you to find Pialtal. You do find him eventually, bent over to look under a piece of equipment. "Ehem. I believe you are looking for these?"

The two kids laugh louder as he jumps and spins to face you. "Dr. Gaster! I am so sorry! They just ran off when the doors opened. I was-"

"Save it. I am leaving early to take these two brats home. I was just letting you know I found them so you could get back to work."

"Oh! Uh, right away!" He turned tail and ran.

You sigh and turn to the kids. "Alright. Who's up for taking a shortcut home?"

"A shortcut?"

You wait a moment for them to both have their eyes closed and teleport to the front of the house in Home. When they open their eyes you're there. No reason for them to see into the Void. "A shortcut."

"Wha-"

"That was so cool!" Asriel's shout immediately summoned his mother from the house.

"ASRIEL AND CHARA DREEMURR! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" You drop them to the ground but don't release them from your blue magic, pinning them. Toriel comes storming from the house and connects the dots when she sees you there. "Hotland?"

"They made it all the way down to my office." The two of them shift nervously from one foot to the other.

"How?"

"They ran into one of my staff right outside the Labs and he tried to bring them down to me. They bolted from his care when the elevator opened. Now if there isn't anything else, I think I am going to go to bed."

Toriel bid you goodnight, though that meant little down here, and you teleported back to the Lab. You were greeted by an explosion. You groaned and hurried toward the problem. And Asgore and Toriel wondered why you never got any sleep.

* * *

 ** _Notes:_**

 _A little bit of fluff to start the week. Friday's update might go up as early as Thursday night this week. I am going to a RTX in Austin this weekend and I am concerned that if I wait until Friday to post Friday's chapter It won't get up until Sunday. I would rather get it up a day early then two late. Next chapter, timeskipping all over the place. And not always in the way you would expect._


	11. His Theme

Two long full years of Chara growing up down here and one capital move later, and it was under your watch that things started to go wrong. You had fallen asleep watching them again, as you were often guilty of doing as of late. They were so much better behaved then your staff that you had trusted them to not get into too much trouble while you were out. It was while you were asleep, they finally made the buttercup laced pie.

Asgore didn't wake you when he returned and found them midway through making the pie, so he decide to help them. He didn't want any of you getting in trouble with Toriel after all, and he knew that you were using the babysitting more and more as an excuse to escape the children that were your co workers. He had mentioned in passing that he had been monitoring your HP out of concern that it was dropping from the stress. You were sure it was from the lack of sleep and irregular eating schedule you had slipped into as of late.

It was because of all this that you slept through them making the pie. You did however wake to the smell of it. For once, you were glad Asgore couldn't cook. You entered the kitchen to the children staring hesitantly at their creation as Asgore fearlessly took a bit. You didn't even register that it probably was the poison pie. You took the plate from his hands and the mostly full pie tin and teleported it straight into the garbage dump. "Asgore, you should have woke me. You could burn _water_ , I swear. Do you all want to wait for your mother or shall I make something you can actually eat?"

The two kids laughed and asked if you knew how to make their mother's famous butterscotch-cinnamon pie. You didn't but mentioned you could make a mean snail pie. Chara assented having adjusted to eating them over the past two years. It was only as Asriel saw you use the cup of butter instead of buttercups and commented on it that a sinking feeling set in in the pit of your stomach.

Asgore got rather bad food poisoning but you had saved him from danger by taking the plate from him after a few bites. You told him what you thought happened while he was recovering and he brushed it off. "It was an accident. They are smart kids, they will learn from this and I don't expect a repeat."

Less than a week later, Toriel and Asgore had a message rushed to you in Hotland that Chara had started to fall down and they didn't know why. By the time you got there, the poison from the buttercups was already too prevalent in their system to do anything. You flushed the flowers themselves from their stomach but they had ingested them hours before now. You walked from the room where the child was curled slowly dying and face her parents, your closest friends. "There isn't anything I can do except make their passing easier. They took a lot of a very deadly poison for a human their size."

Toriel let out a sob. Asgore face turned stoney. "Do you have any idea why?"

"My best guess? They found out or already knew that we needed their SOUL to break the Barrier. They knew that as long as they were alive, we would be stuck down here. They probably thought they were helping."

A sudden _wrongness_ fills the air. This feeling...You knew it…

You turn around and slam the door open to find Asriel, post absorbing Chara's SOUL, teleporting away. You faintly register shouts as you toss yourself into the Void in their wake. You come back out in what looks like Waterfall. You are dazed as you stumble to a halt. You look around to get your bearings.

You spot Chara walking this way? No Chara is dead. This has to be Frisk. You jumped in time again. You look closer and spot the ghostly spirit of the child you had failed to save following this child as well as what might as well be an after image of the child.

You hadn't really puzzled what you had seen the last two times but this time you had appeared a ways back from them. You could hear a faint tune playing in the background, like a music box. Asriel's theme. It was a knife in the heart.

You focus on the children to try to take you mind off what just- is currently happening. That is when you notice it. Frisk, or at least, their body, is moving rather unnaturally. It was almost unnoticeable, but… the kid was moving in a very inhuman way. Every motion was robotically precise. It was as if someone had animated their body from a few key images of a normal human walk and was mathematically filling in the blanks.

Frisk and Chara were not in control, a Player was. You were still in the Game. Before you could have a mental breakdown over what that all meant, they reached you. _"The serene sound of a distant music box… It fills you with determination."_ You watch reality snap back and teleport again to the Judgment Hall.

You briefly see Sans standing up against a pillar before a child's hand touches you and you are yanked back to the present once more. Dizzy as can be, you dash down the hall into the Throne Room. You toss open the doors to find Toriel and Asgore standing over a pile of dust and Chara's lifeless body. Their SOUL, dull and cracked, floats just off the floor. Worthless to cross the Barrier now.

* * *

 ** _Notes:_**

 _*Shoves under the door before convention and backs away slowly*_

 _This was a hard chapter to write and I put it off for a while. Chara and Asriel are cute but they were never going to be a central focus until after they died and came back as spooky ghost kid and demon flower. In other news, you can see a bit of the plot now! Believe it or not, I am actually going somewhere with all this nonsense. Next on the to do list, if you hadn't already guessed, Sans and Papyrus. And the Patience SOUL. Of course, Next Chapter, Gaster this train of thought is drifting close to the shit you pulled back in Chapter 1. Please stop._


	12. Seriously?

Toriel left for Home the next week. Asgore's announcement that all humans who fell from that point one would be killed broke her. It hurt you too and you had even known it was coming. So the artificial SOUL project was born. You wanted to save the other humans that fell by making an artificial human SOUL. Easy enough right? After all, you had Chara's to look at and your own funky SOUL had been human as well.

Months on this project soon turned to years. You got birth announcements as well as death. Finally on the very day the next human fell (not that you of course knew that fact) you made the decision to try using some of your bone as a stabilizer for the SOUL. You were not a normal monster and your bones still held organic matter that helped stabilize your higher than average level of DT as you discovered over you long years of research.

The problem lay in removing the bone graft. There was only a few spots on your body that you could take to from and not compromise your overall health to badly. The palms of your hands were looking like your best option.

You couldn't ask one of your staff to do it for you though, you knew how all of them would react:

Dr. Waul, ever the jackass cat he was, would insist you had gone crazy and run to Asgore who would put a stop to this right away.

Dr. Gray would just stare at you with his lamp like eyes and start asking questions about how you were "feeling." He had a bunch of concerns about your mental health from the start and this would do nothing to help your case that you were perfectly fine to be left alone.

Dr. Pialtal would mostly go green in the face and make an excuse that he needed to get home to his new wife and newborn daughter and that he would totally love to help you permanently disfigure yourself some other time and would then avoid you until the situation sorted itself out.

Dr. Bluebell in her state of horror at the request would likely pull at her long ears and try to calmly explain why this was a terrible idea. She would also go to Asgore.

Dr. Chang, ever the favorite, would call you out on any of the bullshit you came up with to cover up why your bone wouldn't just turn to dust right away. You would rather not explain your human past after all these years. Especially since you couldn't remember much of it now.

That left, Dr. Cinder, Grillby's younger cousin. She would have actually been a viable option if there wasn't the _massive_ issue of her cousin. Grillby would kill you for making her hurt you. He actually probably was going to kill you for doing this regardless.

Since Toriel had left, he had become your primary source of food. It wasn't that you were incapable of cooking for yourself, but you often forgot to actually buy the ingredients needed to cook. He had visited the Labs often over the years since you had moved in, but now his visits were nearly daily. You had wondered how he could manage working his Bar and walking back and forth between Snowdin and Hotland every morning but when you asked he always avoided the avoided the question.

It was thinking about the disapproving look that you knew you were going to get from him when he arrived in a few hours that made you almost hesitate on the sampler's tigger. Keyword, almost.

Pain, lanced up your arm from your left palm as the rock sampler you chose for the slimplicity ground down on the bone at the edge of the sample area. You screamed but no sound but a hiss of air came out. _Holy shit that hurt._

Suddenly the sampler hit metal. You quickly yanked the thing free of the HOLE in your hand and bring it up to your chest. You feel the pain start to dull slightly as you use your healing magic on the mangled hand. There is only so much you can do. There is no bone to replace it. You have a permanent hole there.

A thought crosses your mind. In the Game, Gaster had a hole missing from both hands. You were going to have to do that again. "FFFFUUUUCCCKKKK….."

* * *

Grillby nearly had a panic attack when he found you two hours later baring your lunch. Apparently, cutting the two discs of bone from your hands along with permanently changing your appearance, lowered your HP by about 500 points. Not a good amount to drop by in less than 24 hours.

He sent one of your scientists to find Asgore. Well this was going to be fun to explain.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Oh hey, Grillby is back. Not that he ever left, he just hasn't been in the foreground at all the past few chapters. Also the count down until the next human dies has begun. Maybe if they are careful they can live past the end of next chapter... Next Chapter, The fall out of putting two massive holes in your hands like an idiot. -Void_


	13. Gaster, Learn to Pick Your Battles

It wasn't fun to explain. Two of your best friends staring at you like your going to break if they say the wrong thing and wondering if your going to fall down. Yep. Tons of fun.

"I just needed to get a few grafts of my bone, I swear I'm fine."

Grillby pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses. His flames flared up in exasperation. "Gaster, what part of _you lost_ ** _500 Hope_** **_in less than a 24 hour window_** do you not understand. If you were a weaker monster you would have dusted! You only have a little over a thousand HP left. That is nothing compared to when we met!"

"He is right Gaster." Asgore gave you a pained look. "Your stats have been dropping steadily since shortly after Asriel was born. They would recover slightly when around the children but the moment you had to leave you would start to decline again. What is wrong? Don't say that there isn't anything, because we can see that there is. If you don't tell us, there isn't anyway we can help."

You tap your fingers on the desk in front of you and wince as pain shoots up your arm from the hole in your palm. You hadn't realized your HP had started dropping that far back. You weren't sure what could have caused that. The only thing that was different after Asriel was first born was that was about when you moved-

You hit your forehead with a bandaged palm and cry out in pain. "OW! Okay, I'm a moran. Not only did I just do that, but I don't know how I didn't see it before."

"Gaster. Use your words. The King and I can't read your mind, remember."

"My Hope started dropping because I kept _teleporting_."

Asgore looked thoughtful for a second. "I am not sure I follow."

"Everytime I teleport from point A to point B even if they are only a meter apart, I pass through the intervening space I like to call the Void."

"You have mentioned it before."

"Right. So, I think I might be leaving some of myself behind when I pass through sometimes if I am not focusing correctly." You might actually be leaving bits of yourself in other bits of the timeline. That would explain why you would sometimes see bits and pieces of the future.

"Okay, so no more teleporting. That is now on the list of things you can't do." Grillby looked actually a bit relieved at the revelation. "Staying here 24/7 is another thing."

"Wait. What?"

"I am with the former Lieutenant on this. Living here clearly has been wearing on you and leading you to make questionable judgement calls. We are moving you out of Hotlands. I will pay for the house and help with the move if need be but you cannot stay here."

You open your mouth to argue and decide to close it at the glare from Grillby. You consider your options. "Hey, Grillby, how do you go here from Snowdin and back every day?"

* * *

The three of you are in the middle of making arrangements to move your stuff temporarily into the Inn in Snowdin when alarm sounds. It takes you a moment to figure out what it is for.

You pull up the newly installed camera feed. Exiting now locked door to Home is a small human child with a pale blue ribbon in their hair. In their hand is a toy knife.

It is as if you had been stabbed with the knife yourself. Asgore has already seen them, they are as good as dead. You turn to face him and find he is already out the door.

Your vision blurs as the camera is switched off. Grillby pulls you away carefully and leads you back to your cot in the corner. You're shaking as tears wrack your frame. Your friend doesn't leave even when Asgore returns with the SOUL container filled with the small aqua colored SOUL and the smaller human corpse.

You refuse to look at him.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Wow this is going up late. Sorry about that. There was an issue on AO3 this morning preventing me from uploading this chapter. I post the chapters at the same time on both sites so to not favor one site over the other but I was starting to worry I was going to have to post this chapter on separate days on the two sites. In other news,_ _another human bites the dust. Poor kid didn't even stand a chance. Next chapter, Gaster and Asgore have their first fight and Grillby has had it up to here with Gaster's bullshit._


	14. AN: Got a Question for You Guys

Not a Chapter. The Monday Chapter is going to be going up later on Monday, because I want to get your feeling on something. Namely, Gaster's love life because as I wrote Monday's chapter things kept happening in that area. It is a train wreck that I am having trouble not writing because that is where the characters seem to be going most comfortably. The issue is that this isn't just my Gaster, this is your Gaster as well. With that in mind. The choices of where we go from here.

Option A: Gaster is Asexual and continues on as he has nothing really changes and I will continue trying to figure out what to do with this next chapter.

Option B: Gaster is Asexual but ends up dating because we do not live in a vacuum. He is not Aromatic.

You will notice both options A and B have him as an asexual. The reason for this should be rather obvious, I was trying to avoid writing any romance for him so he is attracted to nothing at all. Of course if you all go with option B we might end up having another one of these again at some point. Just note that if you go with option B, it will just likely change a few things later. This next chapter will be unaffected but I am sure you will see why I decided to bring this up.

-Void

Update:

I made a Straw Poll for the romance issue! /5ew6graa Now I can see what everyone thinks between both sites and everyone who wants to stay anon can.


	15. How Does Sans Drink This?

You weren't talking to Asgore. It was stupid. You had know this was coming the whole time the two of you had been friends and it hadn't mattered. Except it clearly had.

Grillby had been putting up with your total avoidance of the problem for the past few weeks since it was making it easier for him to keep an eye on you. You had been hanging out in his bar while your hands healed since you were currently banned from your own Labs but you were not complaining. Asgore was going in and out of there a lot the past few days to keep an eye one the human SOUL while a SOUL vault was built. Until then, it was being stored in your office. Where you had no desire to be for a change.

Grillby set a mystery drink on the bar in front of you. It was non alcoholic you were sure. He refused to give you anything with alcohol after three glasses. You took a sip of the strange red liquid. This tasted like-

"Grillby, did you just put a shot of ketchup and hot sauce in a glass and try to pass it off as a drink to me?" To be fair, you had made some cheap "Bloody Marys" the same way with the addition of vodka. The vodka was the most important part of fudging the drink.

"You seemed rather out of it. I was checking to see how aware you really were."

"Grillz-" You hadn't called him that in a long time. He started a bit at the old nickname. "-even if I wasn't paying attention before, that would have most certainly gotten my attention. Have you ever _drank_ ketchup more or less straight? That was terrible. If I had a tongue, I would be trying to scrap the taste off of it. I can't believe you made me drink that."

"If you had been paying more attention, you would have seen me make it and avoided drinking it."

"I trusted you. Betrayed. That's what I am. Betrayed by one of my only friends." You fall sideways across the bar and the two neighboring stools. Thankfully they were unoccupied. You forgot to check before slumping over.

He huffs and reaches over the bar to gentle tap you on the head with his fist. "Cut it out G. You're making a scene."

You respond by accidently slipping off and onto the floor. You don't move from where you fall. "I think I will just make friends with your floor. It seems to understand me." You rubbed the floor in solidarity.

"Gaster, oh my God." You could hear his embarrassment in his voice. To be fair, all the patrons in the bar had been watching your drunken spirling for the past few days. They all knew that the two of you were friends and that was one of the few reasons he was putting up with your shit. He normally tossed monsters out when they started bonding with inanimate objects.

You remember faintly reaching out with your magic to try to grab another alcoholic drink from behind the bar magically but after that...

* * *

You have the worst hangover you have had since you became a monster when you wake up to the smell of coffee. You recognized the couch you were passed out on as Grillby's. You flounder out of the blankets that are lain over you and stumble into the kitchen. Grillby is brewing a pot of coffee as he cleans the kitchen for the day ahead. "Please tell me some of that is for me." You wince as you talk.

Grillby looks over at your dishevelled form and hands you a newly filled mug. "You are in better shape this morning than I thought you would be. You were pretty drunk last night." He gives you a look of concern. "How much of last night do you remember?"

"I remember falling on the floor? Did I pass out after that or something?"

"Or something. You stole one of my bottles of bourbon and drank it while I wasn't watching you. After that…" He trailed off as his flames burned a brighter blue color as he blushed. "Uh... How do I put this-"

"Come on Grillby, there were other monsters there, surely I am going to hear about this sooner or later."

"You asked me to marry you."

What.

Grillby clearly saw your face of complete bewilderment because he continued to explain. "Your rather abrupt proposal happened sometime after you finished the bottle of bourbon and had relocated yourself onto the bar top. You had been complaining you were hungry so I made you a basket of fries. After you ate of few of them you turned to me and gave your random proposal. Unfortunately, the way you completely deadpanned it made it seem real to at least a few of the guard members who were still in the bar. I thought you should know before you left." He was burning completely bright blue now, a contrast to his normal calm red-orange flames.

Oh. That explained that. You had joked to him a few times that you wanted to marry him just so you could keep his cooking all to yourself way back before he built the bar. You relaxed. "Well I guess I am going to have to call them off before they start drawing up plans."

He chuckled nervously. "Yeah, last thing we need is for them to start that."

"So, breakfast?"

"Right!" Grillby seem to relax as he started to cook. You smiled as you nursed your hangover coffee. He was a great friend.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Welp, Grillby had a rather fun realization while Gaster was drunk. I admittedly was not originally planing on this, it just sort of happened. I kept re writing this chapter but at least one of these two kept realizing they liked the other. So much for my original plan of keeping Grillby straight. On the bright side. If they do end up dating, at least the Skelebros will have one dad that sticks around._

 _On another note. I made a Straw Poll for the romance issue. /5ew6graa Now I can see what everyone thinks between both sites and everyone who wants to stay anon can._

 _Next Chapter, I have no more idea than you guys. Lets fine out together. -Void_


	16. AN: SHIT

I had a realization in the shower about why I kept writing Grillby the way I was in this chapter. And in the past few chapters in fact. I am not sure I can really back peddle from this. A lot of you guys are favoring option A and I already betrayed you.

My epiphany? Grillby already thinks they are dating, Gaster just never got the memo.

*slams head on desk* I can fix this. It will take a lot of work but I can fix it. I just wanted to give you guys a warning before Grillby does something that makes Gaster realize the issue.

So if we are going with Option A it is now, Grillby and Gaster sort out whatever the heck is going on between them and come out just as friends.

On the other hand, if this changes things for any one, Option B is now they sort this shit out and continue on as boyfriends. So same as before but Gaster might want to try out holding hands and shit.

I also had the thought that some of you might be concerned that Gaster might do NSFW things if things went down the Option B path. If that is the reason you were choosing A, don't worry, the most you would get is awkward kissing. Gaster is a skeleton. And this one is defiantly still ace. And completely oblivious. Sorry for the rant. Had to get this up before I went to sleep.

Strawpoll /5ew6graa


	17. AN: Friday's Chapter is Being Postponed

Sorry, not an update today. The issue is not that the chapter isn't written (it has been since Wednesday), but that posting it now would close the poll a bit too quickly for my liking. So I am putting a cap on the poll on Sunday at Midnight Central Standard Time. That way I know which version of the chapter I need to go with.

As of posting this, B is leading by 12 votes so it is likely that is the version that is going up on Monday but I just want to make sure that I am not closing the poll too soon.

Just PM me for where the poll is at or your choice. I give up with trying to get the stupid url to show.

Sorry for the delay in the chapter but I will be posting the second version in a deleted scenes side story off of this on Monday as well so you can see that too.

-Void


	18. Gay or European

Grillby was acting _odd_. You thought at first it might have had something to do with what you said or did while you were drunk but…

Okay. Let's stop and analyze things.

Fact #1: Grillby was clearly trying to avoid you without trying to avoid you. You know this because he was now pretending to be busy with things when you found him so you would go away. You didn't realize this until you found him rearranging his cabinets for the third time in two weeks. You caught on a bit more quickly after that.

Fact #2: Grillby was getting flustered much more easily. He was spending more time blue than his normal red-orange color.

Fact #3: Despite these facts, he was clearly put out when you left to go back to the hotel room you were living in for the time being or whenever you brought up house hunting nearby.

...

You weren't sure what it all meant but you were not sure how to ask him about it. Finally, as he was helping you rewrap your hands, your curiosity beat out your self restraint. "You're avoiding me."

Grillby jerked back as if slapped, bright white blue. "What! No!"

"You have been pretending to organize your cabinets when I walk in more than three times in the past two weeks."

"Shit." He winced. "I didn't realize I did it that many times."

"I didn't notice at first but as they say, third time's the charm. So..."

"So...What?"

"You going to explain?"

"I- uh- shit- how do I put this?"

"Using words might help."

Grillby lightly punched you in the shoulder as he covered his face with his other hand. _"I'm in love with you."_

You couldn't have heard that right. "Come again?"

He uncovered his face. "I realized the other night that I am I love with you, you idiot."

"Oh." Oh. **OH.**

Your face lit up in a bright blush. "That- I-" What were you even supposed to say to that. You honestly did not compute.

Thankfully, you didn't have to because about then is when Grillby's mouth crashed into yours. This was probably the most awkward kiss in the history of kisses. Mostly because you could do anything about it except stay there and try not to lose you balance from the force of him pressing his mouth against your teeth. So clearly the whole being a skeleton made this extra weird.

You break the very awkward kiss and rub your mouth. "Grillby, surely you realized that skeletons don't kiss like that. That just feels odd."

"What? That's it? I finally tell you I love you after all these years and-" He is cut off as you pull his head against yours so your foreheads and noses touch. That felt more appropriate.

"Grillby, I was trying to figure out how my kind of monster actually kissed one another. Calm down." You released him.

He was reverting to a calmer orange color again. Not quite his normal red-orange but clearly he had cooled down considerably. "So…?"

You thought for a moment. You liked him a lot. Clearly. Hell, you proposed to him while you were drunk just a few days ago. Clearly your subconscious knew who you wanted to date more than you did. "I think I might return the sentiment."

"Thank god." He relaxed and made to move to the other side of the bar. "I was starting to worry you were going to break up with me."

"What?" Okay _that_ was interesting.

"You were very insistent on finding a new place here in Snowdin when you could have just moved in with me. Plus you have been staying at the Inn at night. It was one thing when you were living at the Labs and I knew nothing could really pull you from there but-"

Realization dawned on you. Oh, god, you really were an idiot. He hadn't been visiting the Labs to see his _cousin_. He had been visiting the Labs to visit his _boyfriend_. You start laughing.

"Wait. What so funny?"

"I just realized that I am even more socially inept than I thought. I'm sorry Grillbz, I'm an idiot. It took you literally saying I love you for me to figure we have been dating for-" You did some mental math. "Shit, about five years? No wonder you were so upset with me. I suck at dating."

Grillby stood there motionless for a few moments before what you said sunk in. "Wait- All this time? What did-? How did-?" He flailed his arms for a moment before tossing up his hands. "You know what? I give up. I knew what I was getting into when we started dating. I don't know why this is even surprising."

"So now that we are both actually on the same page, how about I see about moving my stuff in?" You gently grab his hands and tread your though them.

"Given that your lack of not moving in is what set me off on this train of thought, I think we can work on that before I open. I can open late if need be."

You press your forehead against his head again. "Come on. We have work to do."

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _The final tally is 8 votes for Option A, 28 votes Option B, and 2 votes for people for didn't care. With a margin now of 20 votes, Option B clearly won as I thought I it it was going to on Friday but I just wanted to give the last few people the chance to vote. I will be posting the A side of the chapter at some point in the future. I will let you guys know when I goes up in the notes of the next update after I put it up._

 _In case you were wondering and didn't get the reference, the chapter title is a reference to a song from the wonderful Legally Blonde Musical. It has to be one of the more famous songs from the musical. I was listening to it while editing this so now you know how that chapter title came about. Musicals are my greatest weakness...after cute animals...and candy... Next Chapter, No idea since I needed to wait for the poll to close to continue writing. Probably something with Gaster, seeing as it is from his POV and all._


	19. Time to Talk

Dating Grillby was just like being friends with friends with Grillby, just with more hand holding. It was like nothing had changed even with you moving in other than your stuff now being in Grillby's home space behind his Bar. It was kinda nice and explained how you never noticed the whole, dating thing. The two of you had evolved into a comfortably domestic pattern over the years of your friendship and you had just never noticed until now. Not that you had a reason to complain.

What you did have reason to complain about is now that your hands had fully healed, you needed to go back to work. The place you had been dreading returning to for over a month now. Asgore, still wanted to talk to you about why you flipped out about him taking the human SOUL despite being the very monster to build the equipment for the very purpose. He also wanted to talk about how valid his choice was to wait for at least one other human SOUL to pass through the barrier so the events that lead to Asriel's death didn't repeat themselves.

You know all this because, while you had not seen him in person since then, some of the bar regulars had, and they were more than happy to pass messages back and forth between the two of you. Lymnad, who was now busy with a new baby Undyne, found this very stupid and often told you as such when she hung out in the Bar for a burger and fries.

So, here you were, outside your own Labs to afraid to go in. You wished you had taken Grillby's offer to come with you now.

You paced back and forth for a moment to work up the courage again that you had had when you walked to the building. You could do this. You were Dr. Wingdings G Aster, Royal Scientist. You almost single handedly designed the CORE and you will not accidentally fall into it like an idiot because you made sure there are proper safety rails and that there will be a good maintenance schedule for the whole thing.

You plan for things. You can handle the fallout of one little panic attack. Besides, just because you failed Patience doesn't mean you will fail them all. You've got this.

You open the door and step inside before you can change your mind again. To your surprise, Asgore is just on the other side of the door. "Oh! So you came inside? You were out there a while. I thought you might have wanted me to meet you outside."

Oh. Right, the cameras you put in. Well that is embarrassing. You could feel your face heating up. "Um, no. I was working on psyching myself up to see you again. If you had come outside a few minutes earlier, I might have panicked and bolted. Or teleported."

"Then it is a good thing we didn't notice you right away."

"Ah. Yes." The two of you just stood awkwardly inside the doorframe for a beat. "Can I come all the way in my Lab now or am I still not allowed in?"

"Oh! Sorry!" He shifted out of the doorway letting you pass and walk to the elevator. "Your hands are fully healed then?"

You wave your dominate hand back at him. "They're about as good as their going to get. On the brightside, I can now use my palms as cup holders."

Asgore looked exasperated with you for that. "Gaster, permettant disfigurement is not something to joke lightly about."

"Well how else should I _hand_ le it?"

He gives you a look of fondness mixed with annoyance at the small pun. "While I would love to talk on the issue of your self harm again, we need to talk about the human SOUL first."

"Patience."

"No. No putting this off." His reaction puzzled you for half a beat before your mistake dawned on you.

"Oh, no. I wasn't saying to wait, I was remarking on the SOUL's main trait. Patience. You can identify a human SOUL's dominant trait by sight alone if you know what the colors mean." The two of you stepped off the elevator on your floor and start toward your office.

"I thought human SOUL color was random."

"It may seem that way, but if you study the behavior to the humans and compare it to the colors of the SOULs you will see patterns appear. Cyan colored SOULs like the one you collected are generally patient people who would rather wait for issues to resolve themselves than try to correct the issue themselves. The fact that the SOUL you collected was a Patience one means that they must have been pretty desperate or hopeless when you found them. That knowledge…" You shake your head as you open the door to your office.

"That is why you had a panic attack? You saw a bit of our situation in them?" Asgore took a seat in the chair you kept for guests as you slumped into your own.

"I saw a scared _innocent_ child that had no hope that was going to be slaughtered by a close friend."

Asgore flinched at that. "I didn't want to do it anymore than you..."

"So why did you?! You knew I am looking into an alternative to breaking the barrier that would not involve any more death! You still killed them! We can't even put a marker on a grave for them since we never got a chance to find out their name!" You could feel your control on your magic slipping. Random objects in your office around you were floating. You didn't care.

"Gaster-"

"No! Don't try telling me to calm down or that everything will be alright now!" You point to the brightly glowing SOUL you had been ignoring since you walked in. "Someone is dead because of your actions now and I have to live with the consequences. I know you do not plan on absorbing their SOUL right away so you might as well just leave them here. I will take care of them."

Asgore shut his mouth before nodding. He stood up and moved to the door. "Gaster, for what it is worth, I have missed you."

You pick up a pen to pretend to write something and pointedly don't look at him. "Goodbye, Asgore."

He shuts the door and the moment he can't see you, you collapse into yourself. When one of the other Doctors finally works up the courage to come talk to you, you are crying.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _This argument was a long time coming. Don't worry, they will sort this out sooner or later. Might be a while though. Next chapter should be more fluffy and plot progress all in one. See you on Monday_ _. -Void_


	20. Always Science With a Buddy

It takes a few days to get back into the swing of things. The abrupt end of over fifty years of friendship was taking its toll on you. Grillby had almost kept you from going back the next day when he saw the hit your HP had taken from the incident, but you had pointed out that he _had_ been the one that said you could hide from your problems forever. He was kinda pissed at you spinning his words like that, but you got to go back the next day and the next and the next. Finally he started to relax when your HP stabilized again.

So here you were, at your desk just like you had been all those weeks before with your two bone grafts in front of you trying to figure out why you needed two of them. You only should need a bit of the first one to created the stabilized artificial SOUL that you had been trying to make. Clearly future you had known something you didn't. Or Toby Fox was just making your hands symmetrical. You hoped it wasn't the later.

Okay, no more waiting or getting distracted, time to make a SOUL. You picked up the two discs and walked to where the "SOUL forge," as you had been jokingly calling it in your head, was located. You were alone, which was normal. Most the scientists didn't like you looking over their shoulder anymore then you liked them looking over yours. It wasn't the safest science practice but everyone got more done without having anyone breathing down their necks (Though you could have done without the Temmie clones, even if it explained a lot of stuff in the Game).

You slotted the one of bone samples into the machine and started it up. You winced slightly at the noise of it grinding your own bone up as you punched in the necessary code to run for SOUL generation. It appeared everything was ready. You hit the enter key.

For the first time since you finished your magic training, you felt something else pull on your SOUL. This wasn't a gentle tug either, you were lucky you didn't blackout from the sudden pain. As it was, you fell to the floor. And just as suddenly as it came, it was gone. You could feel a pain lancing up the side of your face but suddenly you didn't care. Sans was on you chest and he was adorable.

"Oh my God." Sans made a blubbering noise in response. "Yeah, tell me about it." He babbled some more.

Welp, that explained the reason for the second sample then. You stanger to your feet long enough to put the other sample in and sat back down. Once you were comfortable, you reached up and hit the enter key.

It was a bit less painful the second time only in the regard that you knew it was coming. It was hard to not hurt Sans accidently as the pain wracked your SOUL as the generator stole the last bits it need to create the SOUL from you.

Once Papyrus was also settled on your lap, you shed your coat and wrapped them in it. You were feeling rather light headed, so when you started to fall asleep a few moments later, you didn't fight it.

* * *

You woke to Dr. Ember hovering over you worriedly. Ember was holding Papyrus and you couldn't see Sans anywhere. You jerk up. "Dr. Gaster?"

"Where is Sans?"

"Who's Sans? Sir I just found you passed out here with this baby. What happened to your face? And where did it come from?"

You are struggling to get to your feet. "Sans is his twin." You have to brace yourself on the machine before you can get to your feet all the way. "I guess Sans and Papyrus are my somewhat clones? They are my sons at least. I have the scars on my SOUL now to prove it. As for where they came from…" You gesture to the machine you're leaning against. "Now are you going to help me find my other son or what?"

It was then that Dr. Pialtal walked back in levitating Sans and two baby bottles, one of which was in his mouth. "Oh! Sir, you're awake! He was hungry so I went to grab some of my stuff for when I have to bring my daughter here with me to work."

You stumble free of the machine and take your eldest son, pulling him close to your chest as you fall back to the floor as you legs give out again. Ember takes the other bottle and starts to feed Papyrus which you reluctantly allow since you are too weak to take him back as well. "So I am just going to guess this was not a planned thing since you were alone when it happened."

"No. Not that I am complaining."

"So how do you plan on telling my cousin about this."

"...Fuck."

* * *

 _ **Note:**_

 _I have been waiting for this chapter for ages. At long last, Gaster finally looks like Gaster fully and there are baby skeletons. As you can see, Sans is the older brother but only by a bit here. Now that that is out of the way, I can get back to killing people. Fun times_ _. Next chapter, Gaster tells Grillby what he did. Whoops. -Void_


	21. AN: Not Dead But Not a Chapter

Going on a Short Hiatus. Should be back to Normal Updates on the 14th at the latest hopefully.

So it turns out that these last few weeks of my Degree plan are more work intensive then I had planed on and I ran out of back log of the normal story. The good news for you guys is that you are going to start to see some of the "lost" chapters sooner than expected. At least one of them will go up during the small break as I try to play catch up on my animations and my writing but I am not sure how much longer this one will take to edit. I did scrap it as the original first chapter for a reason. It should go up today. It will be the start of it's own separate thing so if you are just following the story and not me to might want to follow that one when it goes live in a bit. Until next time -Void


	22. Is This The Real Life?

You had to use your weakened magic to help carry the two babies home. You were concerned about how Grillby was going to react. On one hand, Sans and Papyrus were really cute and you doubted he would be mad at you if he could hold them but...

Yeah, creating both of them at the same time was a dumb idea. What the hell had you been thinking. Now you would be raising not just one baby you were completely unprepared for, but two.

Yep, Grillbz was going to murder you.

You shift Sans slightly to push open the back door to the bar and struggle to keep Papyrus afloat in midair as he decides that it is time to flip over again. You had given up holding him normally when his constant squirming nearly made you drop them both earlier.

Finally, you set them both down on the couch and close the door. Grillby must have heard it because just moments later, he is walking into the room as well. He freezes.

"Gaster…"

 _"I CLONED MYSELF, KINDA NOT REALLY!"_ The words rush out as you see panic start to show on his face.

He turns to you and his eyes widen behind his glasses. "What happened to your face?" Concern flickers over his form.

You make a gesture to the boys on the sofa (Sans was passed out now and Papyrus was sucking on his own hand). "I damaged my SOUL when I created them. Please don't get mad. They are really cute."

Grillby walked over to the couch and picked up Sans who didn't wake up at the moment. "...This was not how I was expecting us to get kids." He wasn't mad!

You let out a shout of joy and picked up Papyrus. "So the one you are holding is Sans…"

* * *

The next few years were a hell of an adjustment. Sans was a very quiet baby who would never cry if he needed something unless it was food. Food was a different ballgame.

Papyrus on the other hand babbled constantly day and night. He was such a happy baby all the time. The only time he really cried was when he needed something or he couldn't see Sans or you. It was no real surprise when he said his first word (monsters developed at different rates than humans) a few days after he was "born."

His first word? Da. You were heartbroken when you realized the word was directed to Grillby and not you. You were Ga if you were deciphering his babbling correctly. To be fair, that did mean he had most likely picked up on Grillby calling you Gaster. Still you had wanted them to call _you_ dad not him. He could be papa or something.

You were not bitter, but it did sting. Still you were happy that Grillby had taken to the boys as well as he had and they to him. It made it easier when you had to eventually drag yourself back to the Labs for a half days to make sure they didn't blow something up again in your absence.

You fully denied teleporting home the moment you could leave but Grillby didn't believe you. Thankfully he let it slide when he saw how stressed you looked after being away for only a few hours. He was handling this whole first time parent thing so much better than you were.

Of course, that was most likely do to the fact they were made from your SOUL which hurt in their absence. You wondered if they could feel you as well or if the pull only went one way. Or perhaps they could feel each other's SOULs.

This was not something you could figure out until they were older and could actually tell you though. Still your inner scientist had grown over the years and your curiosity nagged at you. As Grillby had so kindly pointed out, Patience was not your dominant trait, Obliviousness was. You were still not sure if you should laugh or be hurt by the comment.

Still you were raising two happy healthy babies with only the vaguest idea of what you were doing. You never regretted missing the early years of Asriel's life more then when you realized it would have been good practice for actually raising your own kids.

Your own kids. You still felt giddy thinking that. Even now as you feed Sans some mashed carrots, a massive grin is spreading across your face. You see Grillby's flames flicker in silent laughter at your expression out of the corner of your eye but you don't care. You made these little bundles of Magic and Hope and they are so damn cute.

How is it that they are even cuter than you were expecting them to be? Maybe because they are real, and actually here.

Nothing could ruin this for you. Nothing. After all… What could go wrong now?

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _I'm back! Sorry about the abrupt break but when you are trying to finish an animation quickly for a deadline you have to drop most everything. I technically could have gone back to updating on Friday but I needed the extra few days to recover. I still feel like death (going to a concert Friday night did not help matters). On the bright side, the back log should start to build up again over the next few days since I now don't have classes and my current work schedule is still set up for me to have those days off. Next week I am getting back to animating but until then, I hope you guys enjoy what come of it._


	23. Stop Provoking Murphy's Law

...You just had to think those damn words. You had to go and jinx yourself. A human child here in Snowdin, in the bar even. The guards are still all too shocked to move to grab the kid, but here Grillby is, making the kid the hot chocolate it asked for. You had been sitting at a booth with Sans and Papyrus as the two five year olds doodled with crayons so you could talk with Grillby and the patrons while they drew. Now you wanted to grab them and teleport them away. They didn't need to see this.

...Or…

You internally cringe. You can't do that. You aren't a killer. There is still a chance the kid could survive to walk out of here…

...Who were you kidding? They were dead the moment they walk in the door.

Grillby had given the child (a boy wearing a pink leather glove and a very manly bandanna) the hot coco. The boy had just taken the drink when you got up and approached him. Grillby watched the two of you before shooting a look to the boys who had yet to notice what was going on.

"Grillby, watch the boys for a bit." You gently take the cup from the child's hand and set it down. He makes a noise of protest but doesn't fight back so not to let the drink spill. The moment you let go of the cup you slam your hand down on his shoulder and teleport the two of you outside. A feeling of wrongness overwhelms you as you let go of the child and they momentarily vanish. Your surroundings are all wrong. You see Frisk and you don't. You feel sick. They grab you and you hear yourself say _"The sight of such a friendly town fills you with determination," "That comedian..." and "The comedian got away. Failure."_ all at once. But you didn't say any of those things. You feel very sick. Reality twists and slides back into focus.

The human child is dead at your feet. The teleport killed them. You snap up their SOUL in your magic before it breaks and try not to throw up. You can't teleport with this. Not like this anyways.

The guards finally start to filter outside. The cowards. "Can one of you run to my Lab and retrieve a SOUL container. The SOUL is going to break apart otherwise. I can't teleport it with it."

You threw up after that. A fact that would later confuse you because of the whole, not having any organs thing. At the time, however it just made the whole thing that much worse.

Bravery. Only four more until Frisk. God, you were not sure if you could do this.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Careful Gaster, reality got a bit dicey there... The last thing you need is to lose yourself like that again..._

 _Anyhow, short chapter today since the next bit and this don't really work in the same chapter together. The Humans are falling closer together for those keeping track. There were a few decades between Chara and Patience but only a little over seven years between Patience and Bravery. Prepare for things to escalate quickly as Sans and Papyrus grow up._


	24. Sans

Sans was hiding from you again. Today was a school day and he was refusing to go. Again. It wasn't that Sans hated school, after all he did like to learn anything and everything he could get his hands on but...

Sans really didn't like other monsters. At all. There were days where he didn't even like anyone but Papyrus. You had previously been on his very short always okay list, but then you gained LOVE when that last human fell. He had started to avoid looking you in the eye after that. While he had yet to directly say anything about it, you had quickly realized the issue. Sans could CHECK a person just by glancing at them and you still had no idea why. Papyrus, thankfully, was more than happy to help you find his less energetic brother. You're still not sure where all his energy and volume came from, but you were just happy he was happy.

"SANS, COME ON. WE ARE GOING TO BE LATE."

"go on without me bro." You pinpoint your elder son's voice and open the top kitchen cabinet. He is drinking ketchup from the bottle again.

"Sans, you know your dad doesn't like you moving his ingredients around. And drinking his condiments."

"uh, whoops, sorry pops?" You still are baffled that kids call your boyfriend dad and not you. Though you supposed Pops was still an improvement over being Ga like you had been when they had started to talk.

"Just try not to do it anymore, okay? He does need some for the bar."

He rolls his eye lights and climbs out of the cabinet. "fine."

"Now are you ready to go to class?" He shrugs. "Good enough." You grab his shoulder and Papyrus's. The feeling of the Void slips past you and the world reaffirms itself.

Papyrus quickly spots Undyne and darts off to go hang out with the older girl. Halfway to her he realized that he forgot to say goodbye for the day and doubles back for a quick hug before he is gone in the mass of kids at the school in New Home.

Sans, on the other hand, just reluctantly shrugs off your hand on his shoulder. "i guess i should go in after him…" He doesn't move. He just stood there watching the mass of students.

"Sans?"

"hm?" He looked up.

"If there is something bothering you, you know I am here for you, right?"

"i know…" Sans's face fell. "...it's just…" He rubbed the back of his head. "i have been having this weird feeling of dread all morning. like we are just waiting round for the shoe to drop or something. it's probably nothing."

A nasty sinking feeling rested on your SOUL. "Sans, you are extremely magically sensitive. If are picking up on something then I am sure it is probably there. More so than average monsters."

He frowned more at that. "you've never mentioned that before."

"I thought it would be obvious to you seeing as your brother has more standard magical abilities. You two are partial clones of me, meaning the two of you are partial Boss Monsters. You have the magic. Your brother has the normal Stats. The two of you split the difference of what I could do."

"oh. that explains a lot actually…" He looked at his classmates filing inside. "we should probably talk about this more later?"

"Later. I'm sure your brother would like to join in."

Sans shrugged before giving you a quick hug and heading inside. You smile after him. That was the first hug from him you hadn't initiated yourself since he was five. That was now close to six years ago.

You just hoped that whatever wall that Sans had put up between the two of you had fallen. Your constant worry about his dropping HP was wrecking you. Sans had not been born with 1 HP and he was not there yet which was making it more and more clear that your elder son was suffering from extreme depression in the Game and was likely already suffering slightly now.

You just hoped that Papyrus in his continued eleven-year-old obliviousness to his brother's true state a bit longer. The moment he realized Sans new listless behavior was do to his lowered Hope and not an increase of laziness, well…

You let out a sigh as you watched Sans greet his older friend Alyphs and follow Papyrus inside. That was a problem for another day. Today, you had work to do. Namely, on your new DT-Extraction project. You could worry about Sans and his bad feeling about today later.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Here we go. The start of the build to Gaster's going away. Don't worry that is not where the story will end for our unlikely Protagonist. Buckle up, it is going to be a bumpy ride._

 _So here well start to see why I think you are all going to hate me for what I am doing to Sans. I took one of my favorite monsters and gave him depression because as far as I am concerned that is was he does actually have in the games. Sans at the end of this chapter is rocking out at 27 HP. He is only going to go down. At least, for a while._

 _On a more exciting note for you guys, I have been going over my outline again and it looks like there are still 9 more chapters planned out before we hit canon game stuff and the story isn't ending with that. Also that number could increase if some of those chapters run long or need to be broken up like I am afraid they might. So most likely, 9 more chapters until Frisk falls, maybe more... So about 5 weeks? Regardless, expect some lost chapters in there at some point. I am hoping to get another one up later this week maybe._


	25. And Another Bites the Dust

You had just gotten into the rhythm of work when alarms started to go off. You nearly dropped the SOUL container holding what was left of Chara in your startelement. Something had triggered the cameras leaving the Ruins. And you doubted it was Toriel.

You quickly set Chara's SOUL aside and rushed to check the camera. Dr. Grey had beat you there and was switching the feed over. "See anything yet?"

"Not yet. It might be another false alarm. That annoying dog has tripped the cameras a lot the past few days."

"His name is Toby you know."

"If you say so- Ah!" There on the feed was a small child no older than the last in a full ballerina outfit. Integrity…

And they were covered in dust. "Shit."

"We should call the guards in Snowdin…"

"No. I'm calling Lymnad. She is the head of the guard so she should be calling the shots. Besides, she would be pissed if I didn't tell her what was happening again."

You quickly grab the phone next to you off the hook and punch in the number for the Guards in New Home. Hopefully, Lymnad would be at her post. It was one of the younger guards who picked up. "Hello?"

"Is Lymnad there? It's Dr. Gaster. We have a situation that needs her attention in Snowdin. Can you put her on?"

You could hear him fumble the phone for a moment as he shouts for his Captain. Moments later, she picks up. "What's up, G?"

"There is a human in Snowdin forest covered in dust. We need to evacuate Snowdin and stop them before they hurt anyone else."

"Fuck!" You heard her pull the phone away to shout orders to her guards. "You call Grillby yet?"

"Called you first. You have to go farther."

"Call your boyfriend and see if he can get the evacuation started. I know you aren't supposed to teleport much, especially since your magic lashed out like that on the last human, but do you think you can come get me as soon as you're done with your call."

"My magic has been mostly stable. I teleported just fine earlier this morning."

"Good." She hung up. You quickly dial again. Grillby takes longer to pick up. Each ring is painfully long even watching the human so far from the bar still. They were still far too close for comfort.

"Yes?"

"Grillby, you need to evacuate Snowdin and the surrounding area."

"Gaster? What-?"

"A human has fallen and they are killing monsters."

Silence other than a faint crackle of flames. "Okay." The phone line disconnected. Now you had an angry fish warrior to collect.

You and Lymnad reappeared inside Grillby's bar. You quickly leaned over the bar and punched in the number for your Lab as she looked out the window. The town was dead silent. Either Grillby had successfully emptied the town while you waited for Lymnad to finish putting her armor on or the human had already passed through and killed the stranglers. You hoped for the former.

Waul picked up on the third ring. "They've made it to the entrance to Waterfall. Grillby is blocking them from passing and catching up on the monsters from Snowdin."

"Shit!" You drop the phone and run toward the door. "Waterfall!"

Lymnad needs no more prompting. She is out the door and heading toward Waterfall faster than you, even in the heavy armor. It doesn't take long to spot the FIGHT between the SOUL of Integrity and Grillby. Flames dance in the snow fall around the spinning child. From the color of Grillbz flames, he was getting tired.

Thankfully he didn't have to hold out much longer. Lymnad spun into the fight bringing the full force of her magic spears down on the child. The kid was not prepared for this kind of attack and took it fully.

You raced around the FIGHTing and reached Grillby who was no longer involved. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. Just out of practice."

"You have always been more of a chef then a warrior."

"And you continue to either have very good or very bad timing."

You only press your forehead to his in a skeleton kiss. "I was worried."

"Now you know how I feel all the time."

A shout from Lymnad pulls the two of you apart. The human is dead. The underground now had three Human SOULs...

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _I woke up late so I had to wait to post this until I go back from my normal Friday morning volunteer work._

 _I've planned from the start to make this kid a killer because of the item descriptions on the Old Tutu and the Ballet Shoes. In case you don't remember they are "finally, a protective piece of armor" and "these used shoes make you feel incredibly dangerous" respectively. The only other items with descriptions of such a similar feel are Chara's belongings regardless the run type. Make what you will of that about what is to come of the other kids._


	26. The Calm After the Storm

When you and Grillby went to pickup Sans and Papyrus just hours later, word had already reached the school of what had happened. Needless to say you had two very distressed 11 year olds to greet you.

"DAD!" Papyrus didn't hesitate to tackle the flame elemental. "IS IT TRUE YOU HELPED CAPTAIN LYMNAD STOP THE EVIL HUMAN?"

Grillby turned to you questionly. You shrugged. The two had probably heard most of what happened by now.

"I merely stalled them while I waited for your father to teleport her to the scene."

"did they hurt you at all?" Sans eye lights were completely out, but he was clearly checking Grillby's stats for changes.

"I'm fine. If the fight had made it to Waterfall there might have been more issues, but I am mostly just tired."

Sans nods eye lights flickering on. "ok."

"IS DAD LYING LIKE PAPA DOES WHEN HE DOES SOMETHING AT THE LAB HE DOESN'T WANT US OR DAD TO KNOW ABOUT?"

You and Grillby shared a started look. "Wait, what-?"

Sans cuts you off. "he's fine paps."

"Sans, how long has-?"

"GOOD."

"-your brother known you could CHECK other monsters?" You finally finish.

"You knew about this?" "you know?" Sans's hands fly up to cover his mouth once he realized what he let slip. Grillby however just looked started by the revelation in general.

"Sans, your stats have always been a little funny, even for a boss monster. I have been watching you and your brother on the off chance you developed magical skills that could you wind up hurting yourselves with. Like teleportation."

"errr…"

"Sans, I figured out you could teleport too from some of the odd places I would find you when you were younger. That isn't a huge revelation."

"WAIT? IF SANS CAN DO ALL THAT? WHAT CAN I DO?"

"Papyrus, remember how I have to remind you to dismiss your conjured bones after your done with them?"

"YES?"

"Most monsters wouldn't have to be reminded. You are so good at making them and so strong, they probably would never go away unless you dismissed them."

"REALLY? COOL! DO YOU THINK THEY WILL LET ME INTO THE ROYAL GUARD IF I SHOW THEM THAT?"

"The guard?"

"I WANNA HELP STOP EVIL HUMANS AND BE JUST LIKE CAPTAIN LYMNAD. UNDYNE SAID SHE IS GOING TO BE JOINING THE GUARD AFTER SHE FINISHES SCHOOL. I THINK I WANT TO TOO."

"So long as you are doing it because it is what makes you happy and not just to be with your friend I will support your choice…" A frown was on your face regardless. You knew he would want to join sooner or later but that didn't change how dangerous it was.

Grillby's flames flicker in concern, a frown mirroring your own showed that he shared your thoughts. "What about you, Sans? Any goals for the future?"

Sans seemed to consider this for a moment before shrugging. "i like science i guess."

"Oh good, I would like a Lab partner that I could trust to not set themselves on fire in the five minutes I had my back turned."

Sans and Papyrus laughed at that. They always enjoyed your rants about your coworkers. Grillby just groaned. "Why do I feel like there is a story involving my cousin in there?"

"Because she has lost her temper and burned more lab coats then I have, even as accident prone as I am."

"Of course."

"let's face it though, pops is the biggest safety hazard in the labs."

And now everyone was laughing at your expense earlier troubles from the day momentarily forgotten. If only it could stay this way forever.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

This chapter has the fun distinction of almost being posted from my phone since the wind here knocked out my internet... again... While I am glad I am not being (or was) hit by the main body of Hurricane Harvey, I am still feeling the effects where I am at.

But enough about me, this chapter is mostly just to touch on exactly what makes the skelebros so different and show their family dynamics a bit better. As always, it is a bit of a mess holding a conversation with four people but at least with the way Sans and Papyrus talk, you can tell who is speaking at a glance.


	27. Enter Alyphs

"...And this will be your main workspace." You chuckle as you hear the small gasp from Alyphs behind you. Today was the day she was finally joining your now shrinking group of scientists. Of the seven, you had started with, you now only had three. You were, funny enough, now on the second generation of Dr. Waul. Catter was a great deal more reasonable than his father. It was a shame his younger brother wasn't also interested in the field as well. Of course, acting was an interesting choice for someone with his family background. To each their own.

"T-this isn't all mine, is it?"

"All yours. Your father has credited a number of ideas for his inventions to you over the last few years. I want to see what that mind of yours can cook up. Besides, we have the space."

"O-oh, th-thank you sir. I have s-so many ideas I can't wait to show-"

You cut her off before she gets too carried away. "As much as I would love to see them right now, I have a meeting with the King I have been avoiding. How about you get set up and you can show me when I return?"

"O-oh, o-ok." She looked a bit disappointed and relieved at the same time. Yeah, she really didn't know _how to people_ anymore then you.

"I should be back in an hour, barring unforeseen circumstances."

Well as far as reasons to be late to return to the Lab go, this was a pretty good one. Another human and only 4 years and 3 months after the last one. They were definitely falling closer and closer together each time.

Somehow this kid made it all the way to Waterfall before the cameras picked it up. This could have been a disaster if they had been more murderous. As it was, seven monsters were dead.

Undyne was an orphan now. You weren't sure if you should do something for her or not. She was 19 and was already living on her own with a job. Still, she was your goddaughter by proxy through Grillby and you wanted to help.

Grillby you knew was going to be wrecked by this. Lymnad was a childhood friend and between the war and getting trapped down here together, they had grown close as siblings.

This was just a mess.

You stared at the purple SOUL in the container in your hands. Perhaps after you locked the SOUL, you should go home. It would be better if Grillby heard the news from you.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _If you've noticed the chapters getting shorter, they are. There is a reason for this so bear with me. Unfortunately the reason will, most likely, not be revealed until Monday at the earliest since my work schedule got changed on me. Just keep an eye on the Lost Chapters for an update there._

 _And yeah I totally killed a human off screen this time. I have my reasons._


	28. Side B

**Sans POV**

You were not supposed to be out here. Your fathers had made it clear when you were younger that this is where any human, if they fell, would come out of the Ruins, but…

You grinned as you went to knock on the door. Whoever this Toriel on the other side was, she was a riot. The she was the only other monster with the same taste for bad jokes as you and your Pops but she would actually keep the jokes going for hours.

You knew she knew your Pops, which was odd seeing as he had never said anything about her. The questions she sometimes asked out of nowhere about him proved it. You half wondered if you should ask to take him a message for her.

You had been standing in the snow for a few minutes when it dawned on you that there was no answer. Odd. You were on time. You knocked again. A few more minutes. Nothing.

You felt a sinking feeling in your SOUL. Did a human fall? Did they hurt her?

As you turn to leave, finally you hear something. There are voices on the other side of the door. One of them is the old lady. You relax and knock again.

The voices cut off and the lady speaks up, "Who's there?"

"tank."

"Tank who?"

"you're welcome." You grin as you hear her laugh but it vanishes when you realize that only she is laughing. That feeling of unease is back. "i thought i heard someone else with you. you bring a friend?"

"Sans. I would like to introduce Jessie. Jessie wants to make the trip up to see the Barrier but can't make it all the way on their own-" Odd. "-I was wondering if you or your brother inherited your father's ability to teleport?" That was random.

"uh...yeah? i did? paps can't, but i can go from here to waterfall without stopping with one person. taking someone along shortens my shortcuts. i can probably make the trip to the castle in about three jumps. why?"

Slowly the door opened. Behind it, stood a large goat-like boss monster and a human. Oh. Shit.

That would explain why Pops didn't talk about her. He did. He just always talked about her as the former queen, not by name. You felt stupid as pieces clicked into place.

The human was even younger than you and Papyrus when the last one fell, yet, somehow, this kid was almost the same height as you. Damn. Pops was right, you were short for 15.

"huh." Toriel visibly relaxed at your non reaction. Of course, you was sweating bullets on the inside but no one could see it. One of the many pros of being a font skeleton.

"You're a skeleton!" The kid reacted a bit more strongly.

"really?" You faked shock and held up your hands in front of yourself as if to inspect them. "well would you look at that? and here i thought i was a flame elemental like my dad."

Toriel snickered as the kid pouted at you and adjusted their glasses. The frames were clearly bent at the nose and wouldn't stay up. "I was just surprised that there are such human looking monsters. It implies a shared ancestor or parallel evolution."

You raised a brow bone. Okay, not your average 9 year old. "kid, sometimes a monster's kid looks nothing like anyone in the family. monsters are pure magic not genetics. me, my brother and my pops look nothing alike beyond the whole all being font skeletons thing. magic is weird and random. don't think to hard about it."

Now it was Toriel's turn to look surprised. "That is a rather good way of explaining things."

The kid however didn't seem ready to drop it. "Still it is a bit odd."

"kid, there is a little girl in hotland that looks like a human jetliner plane."

"...Okay, maybe you have a bit of a point."

You said your goodbyes to Toriel and watched her close and lock the door. There would be no going back for Jessie but they were fine with that. Finally, you took the kid's hand and you jumped.

* * *

You were an idiot. What had you been thinking? Answer? You hadn't been.

Undyne's place had always been a safe spot to jump to when hopping long distance underground, you just hadn't thought about how her family would react to the sudden human in their yard. The kid panicked and so did they. Aunt Lymnad was out of her normal gear on her day off and Uncle Morgen hadn't seen a FIGHT since the War. It took no time for spears to start flying.

You only just managed to teleport yourself to safety. When the Dust had settled (shit this was bad) the kid had a Level Of ViolencE of 5 from the LV that the two of them had been carrying.

They killed five more monsters in their killing high before Asgore got there.

And now you had to tell Toriel. You raised your hand to knock only for it to fall short. You ended up curled next to the door with your chest aching. Your sobs were all she needed to hear to join you. You had never felt so _cold_.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _What is this? This isn't Gaster? What happened to Point of View?_

 _Not everything going on is revolving around our Protag Gaster anymore. In fact, it for the most part hasn't been. This was supposed to go up a little after the update on Friday but the hurricane happened and tossed my schedule out the window. Tomorrow is going to be a double update with the chapter on the main fic and another side B hopefully going up on here. If it doesn't get up by the end of the day Monday, it will go up Tuesday. Hopefully by Friday my schedule will be back on track again. I don't like staggering these._

 _Edit: Moved to main story where it belongs_


	29. Welcome to Fort Blanket

_In case you missed it, there was an update on the Lost Chapters last night. While you don't have to read it, I do recommend reading that one. It is the side B of the last Chapter. I recommend reading that first. Then coming back here. It is called Ch 27: Side B. This chapter, while it does make sense without it, it clears up a few details of what happened._

* * *

Someone had disabled the cameras and sensors that pointed at the doors exiting the Ruins. In fact, they had been doing it routinely for weeks now and no one had noticed so they had turned off the alert to inform you that they were going down _from your computer_.

Sans had been visiting Toriel behind your back. You were not sure if you should be impressed with how through his covering his bases had been or if you should be disappointed in him for disobeying the one major rule you set out for him.

Still you were worried about what that meant about how he was mixed up in all of this mess. You rubbed your face over the crack in the skull below your left eye socket and flinched slightly at a small twinge of discomfort. Then you paused.

You had been doing that a lot recently. Touching your scars with the corresponding hands as you thought on your sons too hard with worry. Grillby and your scientists had pointed it out to you more than once.

...You did it with Sans more. That was not a good thing.

You really needed to speak with what was shaping up to be your problem child. Maybe a peace offering of a joke book would help open him up a little.

* * *

Sans was curled up under a blanket in a pillowfort that Papyrus was making around him to cheer him up when you got home. You set the new joke book on the table and set to helping reinforce the structure so it wouldn't collapse on the teens. Not that you really needed to. You had taught Papyrus well in the art.

"So you two heard about what happened?"

"SANS WAS IN WATERFALL WHEN IT HAPPENED. HE JUST GOT AWAY FROM THE HUMAN WHEN KING ASGORE SHOWED UP, RIGHT SANS?"

There was a muffled "yeah" from under the blanket lump that was Sans.

You curse before you can catch yourself. "Fuck. That was too close."

"PAPA! SWEAR JAR!" You look at Papyrus in confusion when it registers what you just said.

"Oh! Whoops! Sorry, Papyrus." You and Grillby had started the swear jar once you brought the boys home in an attempt to stop swearing completely. It hadn't worked. All it had done was make Papyrus the swear police, which, while funny most the time, was starting to get old now that he was getting old enough that he could swear.

"1G IN THE JAR."

"In the Jar." You toss a G into the Jar with your magic. "Now that I have done that, would it be possible for me and Sans to talk alone for a minute? I am sure your dad wouldn't mind if you hung out up at the Bar for a bit."

Papyrus seemed like he was suspicious of this but he left with a cheery "OKAY." Both your boys could be pretty sharp when they wanted to be.

You setted in next to the Sans lump. "So, you have been visiting the Ruins for a while now…" Best not beat around the bush.

Sans shot up. "you _know_?"

You roll your eye lights at him. "I was going to have to check the camera eventually. You do realize that only a small handful of monsters can go into my office and would even want to turn those cameras. And by that I mean, maybe both you and Papyrus and we know your brother would have come clean by now if he had done it."

"heh. yeah, i guess that is true… are you mad at me?"

"I am still not sure yet so I guess not. Mostly I was worried about you since you clearly must have teleported the human to Waterfall, which we will get back to-" Sans shrunk into himself a bit at that. "Your HOPE is so much lower than your brother's and mine normally. And now…" Now that he was uncovered you could CHECK him. As you thought his HP had dropped a lot. He was not even breaking 10 which, while terrible even for say a Froggit was scary low for a boss monster. He was only a tenth of what he was this morning when you left. Not good.

Sans looked equally surprised at his own low stats. "oh. no wonder i feel like shit."

You snort. "It is a good thing I sent your brother out or you would have to pay the Jar."

"so i guess i should work on my dodging until i start feeling better?"

"Sans. I have gone through some pretty large drops myself but this is…" You shook your head. "I am still not back to my original level. In fact, I just barely managed to get back to where I was at before you two were born."

"so what you're saying is, the reason you wanted me to avoid the Ruins was so I didn't dust myself, not because you didn't think I could get away from any human who came through."

You sigh. "More or less."

"i am not going to stop going down there. i like talking to Toriel."

You smile at that. "And I am sure she likes talking to you. I know how great of a kid you are."

"i am hardly a kid."

"I'll stop calling you that when you stop wearing those shirts." That got a small laugh from him. The two of you devolved into tossing verbal jabs at one another in the comfort of the fort. When Grillby and Papyrus entered a short while later, with a plate of comfort food, you were happy to find Sans, HP had hit 10 again.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _So Sans is spiraling and blanket forts only help so much. I am going to post another Side B to this chapter today hopefully if all goes well. If not, well it will be up tomorrow. Let me know what you guys think of seeing things from Sans's and Papyrus's POV._


	30. Welcome to Fort Blanket: Part 2

**Papyrus POV**

Sans looked really upset when he came in the door. You had seen him looking sad a lot over the years but not like this. He looked...smaller.

Not that Sans didn't already look small next to the GREAT PAPYRUS, what with you being the taller twin and all but this was more than the effect of the foot in height between you. No. He was curled into that massive hoodie that he had found at the dump a week ago that Dad hated but Papa had sided with Sans and refused to let him get rid of it.

Even with the fabric drowning your brother, he was shivering. That was not a good sign. "BROTHER? ARE YOU COLD?" You _knew_ that was not normal. You had never been cold a day in your life.

"a bit."

"THEN WHY ARE YOU STANDING OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW? COME IN ALREADY! WE CAN MAKE A BLANKET FORT AND WARM YOU AND YOUR SOUL RIGHT UP."

He smiled weakly at me and pulled the door shut behind him. You quickly set to work building the fort up to Papa's standards. Sans meanwhile just cocooned himself in one of the larger blankets, meant to drape from the couch back to the floor. He quickly became near unidentifiable outside the soft glow from his SOUL that leaked through the blanket in places.

He was sick. You really should find one of your fathers to get help for him, but you were not sure if leaving him alone like this was a good idea. For the first time, your SOUL ached while you didn't know what to do.

* * *

A hour. The two of you were here alone like this for an hour before Papa found you. You had been finished with the fort for so long that you had started moving parts of it around to see if you could maximize the space any or the comfort. Sans hadn't responded much to any attempts on your part to talk to him.

Over the hour you had gotten a broken story from him. A human had fallen. It had killed Aunt Lymnad and Uncle Morgen. He had just missed being killed himself. No wonder Sans felt so bad.

"So you two heard about what happened?" Papa set a book down and started moving parts of my fort back to their starting positions.

"SANS WAS IN WATERFALL WHEN IT HAPPENED. HE JUST GOT AWAY FROM THE HUMAN WHEN KING ASGORE SHOWED UP, RIGHT SANS?"

There was a muffled "yeah" from under the blanket lump that was Sans. You smile sadly at him.

"Fuck. That was too close." Your head snaps to your Papa in attention.

"PAPA! SWEAR JAR!" He stares at you for a beat in confusion before realization of what he just said seems to dawn.

"Oh! Whoops! Sorry, Papyrus."

"1G IN THE JAR." You point.

"In the Jar." You watch him toss a G into the Jar with his magic. "Now that I have done that, would it be possible for me and Sans to talk alone for a minute? I am sure your dad wouldn't mind if you hung out up at the Bar for a bit."

You were suspicious of this but faked a cheery "OKAY" and left. You did not however go all that far...

* * *

As the conversation devolved into lighthearted jabs your SOUL had sunk. Your twin brother was literally dying in the next room and neither he nor your Papa wanted you to know, clearly.

You pulled away from the wall and walked into the front of the bar to find your Dad. He noticed your frown, right away. "Papyrus? What's wrong?"

"I KNOW SANS IS SICK AND NEITHER HE NOR PAPA WILL TALK ABOUT IT IN FRONT OF ME."

Your Dad looked a bit surprised by that. "I am sure your father has his reasons for not talking about this in front of you. Have you considered that maybe the only way he can get your brother to talk about this is when he is by himself? Both you and your brother are a lot like your father in a lot of ways. The biggest way is your stubbornness. If you want something a certain way, you will have it that way. I have had to learn to be much more relaxed and flexible with things with all three of you living under one roof."

You reluctantly admit that it makes sense. "I SUPPOSE THAT IS GOOD REASONING. I WOULD STILL LIKE TO BE IN THE LOOP THOUGH."

"How about I talk with your father later? I am sure if he knew how you felt he would try to make sure to keep you better informed."

"THAT SOUNDS LIKE IT COULD WORK." You nod.

"Now that that is sorted, how about we make something to cheer your brother up?"

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _In case you were wondering. The reason I am only typing their speaking parts in the correct font equivalents is because reading a whole chapter in all caps sucks at your eyes something awful as far as I am concerned and I have no desire to force anyone to go through that._

 _Edit: Moved to main story were it belongs._


	31. The DT-Extractor

The large looming structure of the DT-extractor hung above you as you connected up the last of the wires. It was almost complete and damn if it didn't look pretty cool. The skull like shape actually had a purpose as it turned out. It helped draw the DT up and out more easily.

Today would finally be the day you turned the damn thing on. And it was a damned thing with what it would lead too. Flowey and the resets. But if there was a snowball's chance in hell that you could change what was coming, it would be with this.

You had a plan.

You had been thinking for a while now about ways to trick the Barrier instead of breaking it. Perhaps the reason a monster could not pass through the Barrier was because they lacked enough DT to go through. If that was the case then infusing a monster with pure DT extracted from a human SOUL might work and leave the SOUL almost completely intact.

There was just the one problem. A normal monster would melt from that much raw Determination. The True Lab had shown as much with the Amalgamates that Alyphs would create.

You were not a normal monster. Unlike a normal monster you had real bone at your core making up some of your mass. You were more then solidified magic. Maybe…

...It would be risky. If you failed, who know what would happen. But you had to try. For your sons.

* * *

You stared at the needle full of liquid determination in your hands. There was a good chance this could dust you outright. Just this one dose would likely not be enough to allow you through the Barrier ethier. You would have to do several.

But how many would be enough? And would you start to melt after even the first one?

You filled six more syringes before you ran out of DT from the first running of the extractor. Deciding that you had prepared as best as you could, you picked one up and rolled up your sleeve. It went into your ulna in your left arm with some resistance but that was to be expected, the needle was meant for flesh not bone.

As you depressed the plunger on the syringe you hear a shout in alarm. You look up in time to see Sans stumble into view. You don't get a chance to react unfortunately, because in that moment, everything seems to explode outward from you. And then Black.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Honestly Gaster, you should know better doing an injection without sanitizing the injection site first? For shame, Gaster. That is how you get an infection.  
_

 _I am putting this up a bit later in the day then normal because of the part B of this chapter. I wanted them to go up back to back. B took a bit to sort out is all. It will be up in a few minutes._


	32. The DT-Extractor: Part 2

**Sans POV (Now what is this doing in the main fic?)**

Pops had been acting strange the past few days. The last few time he hugged you and Paps, he seemed reluctant to break it off. Dad was suspicious that he was about to do something stupid but he wasn't getting any answers from him anytime soon. So you were spying on him instead of going to class.

The DT-extractor creeped you out. It's skull like shape and its purpose just rubbed you wrong. Pops had inserted the faded red SOUL of the first human into the machine a little while ago and was finally turning the damn thing back off. The air crackled faintly with excess magic.

He reached out and pulled a vial of the DT free of the machine and started to fill a needle. And another. And another… Okay, now he had seven of the things sitting there.

But what was he doing.

It was only as he rolled up his sleeve with one of those stupid needles in hand that it started to click. Wait. Pops couldn't really be that stupid, right? The sound and sight of the needle meeting bone answered that question. Yep. Pops, was that stupid. You scrambled to get out of you hiding place. " ! !"

Your voice had shifted down an octave in your panic. Still you had gotten his attention. Just a moment too late it seem. The syringe was empty.

The room went from calm and near silent to a hailstorm of raw magic in a millisecond. And Pops was the source. Papers, syringes, and other smaller object flew around the room wildly. The table they had sat on flew crashing into the DT-extractor and fell into the pit below. The extractor itself bucked wildly in the magically generated winds.

The DT-Extractor! That was it! You could save your Pops from… whatever this was by extracting the DT back out!

You darted across the room to the control panel, not trusting your magic much in this magic storm. You open the extractor and yank out the human SOUL. Now the hard part. You launch the code for the start up of the machine and override the safely for it still being open. Now to shove your old man in.

He was clearly completely gone now so when you tried a bit of blue magic in the desperate hopes that it would work, he didn't fight back. You watched as he, and the storm flew into the jaws of the machine and-

The explosion that followed made your teeth rattle. You blinked away the afterimages of the explosion only for panic to start to set in. You just- He was- The DT-extractor was completely unrecognisable and the dust that was now floating in the air-

You just killed your father. Oh, Asgore, what had you done.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Gaster: I'm not dead._

 _Sans: what?_

 _Void: Nothing. Your chapter is over you can go._

 _Gaster: I'm not dead._

 _Sans: oh thank asgore! i thought i killed you._

 _Void: You did. Yep. Totally dead that one._

 _Gaster: I'm not._

 _Sans: he isn't._

 _Void: Damn, so much for that plan._

 _I think it should be clear why I chose to not post this like the other alt perspective chapters. Any of you remember me saying you guys were going to hate what I was going to do to Sans? Well... *does jazz hands in the chapter's direction* I have had this planed from near the start. Sans was always going to be the one to give him the last bit of a shove into the Void but I sure hope those of you who guessed that much were not guessing that he would still be a 16 year old ('cuz that is how old he is) or would think he dusted him with no hope of getting him back. But don't worry, he will get him back... eventually... Next chapter should be much more chill before we get back to the train wreck that is the Underground in the years right before Frisk falls._


	33. Welcome to the Void

Waking up without a body had to be the most frightening thing you had ever experienced. Going to open your eyes to find that you couldn't was the biggest shock you had had since the whole, suddenly a monster thing. Were you in a coma? Could monsters fall into comas?

You screamed out with your SOUL and felt only **V O I D**. Your SOUL suddenly felt numb. You pulled for your magic but it would just slip away. You were trapped in the Void. You were really living up to what your expectations of one W D Gaster's life was life back when you had been a bored college student playing a video game.

This was really fucked up.

...

Time did not pass here. Not in the same why at least. That was the reason you couldn't touch your magic. Still something passed or maybe the Determination you had injected yourself with severed you from time's control completely.

You would feel time sporadically as you more or less sat and stewed. Sans and your younger self with bring some with them when they passed through. They never saw you though. Sans was much better about not looking into the Void when jumping between point A and B then you had been and you had only looked the first time. It was odd watching Sans. At times you would see him old than he was before you got trapped, and other times older. Somethings he would be alone and other times he would have a companion or two. It was like watching snapshots of your son's life in the wrong order.

Watching your younger self brought back memories. Memories of when things were easier between you and your friends. When Sans and Papyrus were still just babybones. When you still _had a body_. Now there were, Asgore knows, how many of you here at any time.

It was probably this kind of thinking that got you talking to yourself.

 _"We died, woke up, traveled dimensions, got essentially adopted by the royal family, got chased into an active volcano, received a doctorate, watched our god kids commit suicide, helped our best friend commit murder, fell for our other best friend, accidentally created life and then accidentally took it, and finally we just made our own son kill us again. Am I forgetting anything else...?"_

 **"Well we're talking to ourselves now."**

 _"Obviously."_

 **"And talking almost entirely in the royal we. Who does that?"**

 _"You want me to stop?"_

 **"Stop talking to yourself like there is someone else there. It makes us sound crazy."**

 _"Says the guy who keeps responding."_

 **"Of course, I am going to respond. We are hovering in the middle of the void basically waiting for something to change!"**

 _"Ah! Now look who is using the royal we!"_

 **"Shut up, Asshole!"**

 _"Who are you calling and Asshole, Asshole!"_

 **"..."**

 _"..."_

 **"I just insulted myself."**

 _"I think we can both agree that we are an idiot."_

 **"Never speak of this again?"**

 _"Deal. So any ideas?"_

 **"...How about I Spy?"**

 _"...Do I have to explain that one or can you figure it out yourself?"_

 **"We could make up a story? One sentence at a time and keep trading off."**

 _"I guess? You want to start?"_

 **"Sure? Uh… Once upon a time in a far off kingdom..."**

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _We I have wanted to write this chapter for a while. Not because I wanted to put Gaster in the Void but because I just like writing characters talking to themselves. Plot should resume on Friday. Until then, enjoy the babbling of a now mad man._


	34. Welcome to Insanity

**"...Suddenly, just when they least expected it, the dragon rose from the dead."**

 _"The hell? You can't do that! You know how long it took for them to kill that thing in the first place. Albeck is nearly dead and Ori nearly was consumed by his madness in the fight."_

 **"Of course...Who do you think cast the raise dead on the dragon?"**

 _"...Son of a bitch. That is it! We need to do something else for a bit."_

 **"Like what?"**

 _"Get a body here or something."_

 **"Oh… Well perhaps you should try relaxing? Your panicking at first made it so you kept losing magic to the void. Maybe being calm will help?"**

 _"Worth a shot."_

You try to relax like you suggested to yourself. You helpfully conjure up nice mental images of peaceful places for yourself. It is very calming. For a moment you actually forget you are in the Void and shouldn't be able to see yourself since suddenly your corporal again.

Both of you are? Huh. You look at your mirror image suspended in the Void before you. Your form was… melty in some ways. Your skull and hands were normal enough as was the collar of you sweater you had been wearing (though it had been a different color before), but the rest of you could only be described as liquid Void.

 _"Why are there two of us now?"_

 **"Well it would be easier to play Rock-Paper-Scissors this way."**

 _"...I'll give you that one but that doesn't answer my question."_

 **"We are disassociating each other as pieces of ourselves and pulling apart I think."**

 _"That does sound likely. Do you think we can pull ourselves back together?"_

 **"Maybe? The question is do we want to though?"**

 _"Why wouldn't we?"_

 **"Two heads are better than one. We could probably find a way out faster if we work together."**

 _"Point again. Any more bright ideas?"_

 **"No. Fresh out."**

 _"How about we figure out how to fix the whole floating aimlessly in the Void thing next. I would love to stand on something."_

 **"Sounds good."**

* * *

You spent what felt like several days building a house in the Void. It was a pretty basic magic construct but compared to what you had been able to do outside the Void, it was a rather impressive build. Now for the next challenge, looking out of the Void.

 _"It shouldn't be_ that _hard to do. The Void is the space between everything after all."_

 **"Yeah but I doubt we will be able to consistently be able to open a view into the point of time we want to see. It could open** ** _anywhere_** **or** ** _anywhen_** **."**

You wave yourself off. _"If we can get one then we can get more. We have all the time in the world now. Since we got here we haven't needed to eat or sleep at all. I don't even think we can die here."_

 **"That wouldn't surprise me. This place does not follow normal rules most of the time."**

 _"You mean at all."_

You snort in response and go back to fiddling with your magic. You shoot a smile at yourself and resume as well. Well, as far as people to be stuck with for possibly all of time go, yourself was not a bad option. Let's just hope you can resist hitting yourself for being such a know it all.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _These chapters are a bit shorter but I don't want Gaster progressing to far with his new abilities in one chapter._

 _I am not going to explain what is going on with the two Gasters here yet. You will have to wait for an explanation. Feel free to guess what is going on if you want but I am not going to confirm or deny anything until later._


	35. Snapshots from the Void

***Munch munch munch...***

 _"Is that popcorn?"_ You had started slightly at the noise behind you while you attempted to peer into reality once more. Nether of you had eaten anything since you got here years ago now. The fact that your double was eating something meant he when through the trough of conjuring it up for the first time ever just to disturb you in a new way. You _really_ wanted to kill yourself. He was an asshole.

 **"You want some?"**

 _"No. Care to explain why?"_

 **"You broke through a few minutes ago. I thought it would be a good time to break it out."**

 _"Yes that would be-WAIT WHAT!"_ Your eyes snapped open to see a window into the Underground before you. You could see your sons eating breakfast. They had barely aged at all. Wait-

 **"It doesn't look like they are living with Grillby anymore. How are they paying for that house at that age already?"**

 _"We'll have to find out, won't we…"_

* * *

 _"Sans is the only one who remembers us."_

 **"We knew that would be the case."**

 _"How could Grillby just kick them out like that!"_

 **"To be fair, if you didn't exist, they didn't either. I wonder what is going on with Papyrus. All things considered, he should remember too."**

 _"That is odd. We are missing a lot of details. ARGH! What happened in the four months we missed?"_

 **"I'm sure we can figure it out. It has just been a few days. I'm sure in a few months we will have a better idea."**

* * *

 **"This is their second birthday since we died and Grillby kicked them out with no explanation."**

 _"I wish there hadn't been a first."_

 **"Let's hope the kid that is climbing the mountain right now decides to turn back. That is the last thing they need for a birthday present."**

 _"You're kidding me. Nope. Fuck. Well at least it is Kindness and not Justice."_

 **"Hopefully Alyphs spots the kid and does her goddamn job."**

 _"Hopefully…"_

* * *

 _"Is it bad that I am happy that she created the devil flower?"_

 **"Given the hell it is about to put our sons through? Most likely."**

 _"I just really miss Asriel and Chara, plus Flowey did always have a lot of Chara's sass on top of Asriel's memories."_

 **"He is his own monster. Still, he is a demon for what he is about to do."**

 _"Not as bad as a Determined Player though."_

 **"No…"**

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _This would have go up earlier this morning but I slept in. I might do an Alt chapter for this one from one of the skelebros perspectives later but I am not sure when that will happen. Not doing it now because I want some stuff to remain vague until G finds out about it himself. *waves hands mysteriously*_


	36. Justice

_"So Justice falls during this whole time looping mess."_

 **"Flowey isn't going all the way back to his first SAVE anymore at least."**

 _"Still, Sans is starting to lose it slightly from the whole Groundhog's Day Effect. I really wish there was a way we could let him know he hadn't gone crazy."_

 **"It is only a matter of time before he talks to someone. It would be nice if he hadn't inherited our habit of trying to avoiding our issues like the plague."**

 _"To be fair, Papyrus does it sometimes too. He is just better about catching himself and facing the issues afterwards. Probably Grillby's influence."_

 **"...Why didn't we ever marry him anyways?"**

 _"I think it was because of the cost and the fact that we were always so busy. Sure I could have probably afforded it on my salary but it made more sense to spend the money on the boys."_

 **"I miss him and the boys."**

You start to cry in response.

* * *

 **"Why are we still watching this? All it does is make you more upset."**

 _"I need to see the timeline that Frisk falls into."_

 **"No you don't. You have seen enough variations from the norm to figure out what happened up until that point** ** _when_** **that happens. You need a break."**

 _"If Sans can't get a break from all of this then I won't get one either."_

The other you suddenly grabbed your shoulders and yanked you back from the screen. **"I WILL NOT LET YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF."**

He had done the scary face and voice on you. You hadn't even considered that you could probably do that too. You were so startled that you let out a yelp of surprise and fell to the floor.

The harsh shadows faded from his face. **"I'm sorry. I went a bit overboard there. The stress is getting to me."**

 _"It's fine."_ You took his now outstretched hand to pull yourself up. _"You just caught me off guard is all."_

 **"I'll try not to do it again."**

 _"Let's just get back to watching, shall we?"_ The other you let out a resigned huff and sat down next to you. His face was pointedly turned away. You just sighed and resumed watching in silence.

* * *

 _"No wonder Sans hates humans so much by the time Frisk falls. This Justice SOUL is really screwing with him."_

 **"Sometimes leaving the ruins on a warpath to kill the monsters behind the deaths of the past five fallen human SOULs and other times completely understanding of the monster's plight and wanting to see Asgore to try to talk a bit of sense into him. The kid is pretty wishy washy."**

 _"I guess this could be considered a dry run for the Player for Sans. Still…"_

 **"...Not looking forward to seeing everyone you know and love murdered repeatedly?"**

 _"I just wish there was something we could do!"_

 **"To be fair, we haven't really been trying all that hard to get out since we got the window."**

The comment hung in the air for a moment before it registered and your hand met your face. _"Fffuuuucccckkkkk. I'm such an idiot!"_

 **"I have always wondered how it was Asgore made us the Royal Scientist when we were also horribly under qualified. Nepotism at its finest, I think."**

 _"Shut up, we have work to do."_

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _This marks the end of the scheduled updates every Monday and Friday. My work schedule is now almost full time instead on normal part time hours and add that to the fact I still need time to work on original content, this needs to update less often. Updates are now only going to be scheduled for Fridays from this point forward (because, worse come to worse, I can still write the chapter that day). There still might be a Monday update here and there but it is not a sure thing anymore. As of right now I am uncertain if Monday will have an update, since I had to finish this chapter this morning, but we will have to find out together wont we?_

 _Now about this chapter itself. Gaster is finally about to make a break for it from the Void. It only took four chapters to get there but what can you do. At this rate we might actually see Frisk and company properly before Halloween like I had hoped. Good to see things actually working out as planed for once._


	37. Player Two Has Entered

**"You figure something out yet? The Player is doing another Genocide attempt."**

 _"Go away. You are making it hard to focus."_ You had figured it out. The secret to entering and exiting the Void was in this section of code in the _Universe._ You just needed to figure out how to correctly change it without causing a world destroying glitch.

 **"We should have taken that coding class, huh?"**

 _"To be honest, I'm not so sure it would have helped. I am pretty sure the world is being held together by at least two completely different coding languages interacting with one another somehow. I am not even sure which ones they are either."_

 **"I'm going to make a stab in the dark and say one is probably Delphi seeing as that is what the game was coded in."**

 _"How do you even remember that?"_

The other you just shrugged before hopping into a seat next to you. **"Here, let me take over for a bit. You need a break."**

 _"Fine I'll-"_ You're cut off as the feeling of a full reset in the timeline hits you once again. _"-go check on the timeline again. This is getting ridiculous."_

 **"Take a break after."**

 _"No promises."_

* * *

The Player was in the Void. THE PLAYER WAS IN THE VOID.

They had found and opened the door in Waterfall that you had literally just made to escape through and walked straight into the now single empty room.

Empty, except for the two versions of you.

You spun to look at your constant companion for the past few years only to find yourself alone with the approaching monster in sheep's clothing. One that was about to touch you.

NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. Teleport.

You tumble through the Void and back out again before you even think about how stupid of an idea that this could be. You stumble free into the middle of a large snow drift.

You don't even try to free yourself before the crazy giggles set in. _'I'm out! Holy shit, I can do stuff for real again.'_

 **"Like see our sons."**

 _'Like see our-'_ Your train of thought is completely destroyed by the other you's comment from inside your own head. A sudden painful realization starts to set in. _'...You weren't ever really… there were you?'_

 **"As many people have said, Sanity is overrated."**

 _'Says the figment of my imagination. Still you weren't wrong about me missing Sans and Papyrus. Perhaps it is time to go look for them..."_

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _T_ _he mystery as to what is going on with the second Gaster is finally reveled. Yep, poor Gaster did go a bit crazy without realizing it. Italics has been our normal Gaster and Bold is the slight split personality he has devolved. I will be referring to them as Gaster and Dings respectively until further notice. In case your wondering, no, Dings is not going to just go away on his own magically. Gaster is probably going to be talking to himself from this point on. At least now he is aware of the fact he sounds crazy when he does it out loud. He is thankfully not that far gone._

 _Also I fixed a major problem from the last chapter. It turns out that my attempted to copy and paste the doc from my Google Drive didn't go 100% correctly and an either chunk of dialogue got cut down to just the letter F. It should be fixed now. Sorry it took me so long to catch it._


	38. Skipping

You were actually lost. It was a bit embarrassing. With your reluctance to teleport again and the fact you were in an area you had never been before, either in Game or in person meant you were a bit turned around. At least you thought this was the case. It didn't help that after a little while the Player started loading earlier saves again and jolting you back a ways.

Eventually you just sat down were you were to wait things out. You decided that the moment you saw something different or at the very least, stopped feeling the resets every five minutes, you would move.

You were in the middle of making your Echo flower crown of boredom when a huffy Undyne stormed into view. She spotted you as you spotted her.

"Hey you! What are you doing out here? Don't you know there is a Human on the loose?"

"The jury is still out on that one."

"What?"

"That it is fully human. I was on the surface before the Barrier went up, so trust me when I say there is something wrong with that child."

 **"Understatement of the year."**

 _'Shut up.'_

Undyne looked taken aback at your declaration. "I thought only Gerson and the King where the only monsters old enough to remember being on the surface."

"No, there are more of us, they are just the only ones that ever really talk about it. Your parents were among the number back before…" You sigh and shake your head.

"You knew my parents? Wait, have we met before? You don't look familiar and I like to think I am good with faces."

"When you were younger. My boyfriend was your Godfather so you used to spend some time with us. At least until you were five. Then you refused to stay with anyone for more than an hour. That didn't exactly work with the fact my boyfriend and I were raising our very young sons then."

"Wait, if you were raising kids with your boyfriend, why is he just your boyfriend?"

 **"Because after you proposed to him drunk once and took it back, you were afraid he would never take your proposal seriously."**

"Because I am shit at time management." _'Shut it, I'm serious. You're not helping.'_

"Well you should probably fix that sooner rather than later."

"Most likely…..This might seem a bit random but have you seen Sans or Papyrus recently?"

"You know…...Wait stupid question, of course all the skeleton monsters in the Underground know each other. You are related to their dead dad or something, right?"

"That is most certainly one way of putting things."

She studied your face for a moment as if trying to discern the truth of the matter. "If you say so. Anyways, last I saw Sans, he was napping at his station at the entrance to Hotlands. Papyrus and I are meeting in a few hours for our usual training session so you can try and catch him before or after at my house I guess. You know where that is right?"

You nod. "Thanks. I am going to try and hunt down Sans now. Wish me luck." And with quite a bit of reluctance but little other choice in the matter, you teleported...Only to watch a huffy Undyne storm into view as you work on the flower crown. A wave of nausea hit you as you set the finished crown down and waved at the captain of the Royal Guard.

 **"Well that was unpleasant, lets try to avoid that if at all possible."**

 _'Agreed.'_ This time when you teleport, you actual leave.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _No Gaster! You forgot your flower crown!_

 _In any case, welcome to the final run for the Player, even if they still don't know it yet. They are going to be confused as hell when they show up to cook with Undyne and she is rocking the flower crown, though. Might do a little one shot Lost Chapter of it when I one day have the time. We will see._


	39. Explain

You had just missed Sans it looked like from the few spots of fresh ketchup on the station top. You had a pretty good guess where he had gone at least. You reluctantly teleported close to his next station turned 'Dog stand.

The Player was thankfully nowhere to be found.

You took a deep breath and stepped into view. Sans froze mid sentence with a customer the moment he spotted you, eye lights suddenly gone. " **Sorry, I gotta go.** " He teleported over you to you before the Vulkin could respond and grabbed the front of your shirt. The world twisted into the Void and back as he teleported the two of you into a snow filled clearing not far outside of Snowdin if you had to guess.

" **Who are you. Why are you wearing my father's face.** "

"Sans, it is me. I have been stuck in the Void for years since the accident. I just found a way out earlier in this reset."

His eye lights flickered on in surprise before vanishing. " **Prove it. Prove to me that you really are him.** "

It is like a knife to the heart but with all the shit he has been through, you are not surprised that he doesn't trust anything anymore. "The real reason I knew you had turned off the cameras to talk to Toriel back when you were just in stripes was because of the resets. I've always know this was coming which was why I was getting so desperate to find a way to break the Barrier with Frisk's presence. I blew myself up, you just happened to be there."

Sans eye lights were still out as he clearly considered your words. Finally they flickered on as he met your gaze. "ok, say this is all true. Why not warn me beforehand of what was coming so I could have at least been slightly prepared."

 **"Huh. All things considered this is going rather well."**

 _'I know, right?'_

"Besides not knowing for sure if my plan was going to fail or not, I couldn't risk changing too many things. The Player might have noticed. I don't know if we are an lone game instance or if all the games feed through our timelines, regardless it was too high of a risk."

"player? game? what are you saying?"

"Uh… How can I put this gently?"

 **"Well this will be fun to explain."**

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _I am sorry for the short chapter but with the way things have been it was the best I could do which has mad making the following decision a bit easier. I am going on another Hiatus but this on will not be ending until the start of December. Reason being? I was going to go on the Hiatus for the nanowrimo anyways and this way a can build up a few chapters maybe for this Fic before I start in on that project._

 _I'll see you when I get back or in the comments I suppose. Until then. -Void_


	40. Chekhov's Gun

"...And that was about when I realized the Game was real and I had somehow become a character from it. Mind you one that is mostly hidden but still…"

 _'Well, he isn't trying to kill us…'_

 **"I think he is just in shock. That was a bit of a big info dump."**

 _'That sounds likely.'_

"...so wait does this make me and paps like half human or something? and is that the whole reason i keep remembering when the anomaly resets?"

"No, the two of you seem to be fully monster, if a bit more corporeal than most. I think your remembering might be because you might have gotten blasted with excess DT when I sort of exploded before. Maybe. If it wasn't obvious, timetravel always really messes things up horribly and until we figure out how the Player is actually doing it, we won't have any idea of what actually happened."

"So in other words you have no idea. right. 'suppose i shouldn't be too surprised, grillbz was always the more on top of things when we were growing up."

You blinked at him in a small bit of surprise. "What on Earth is that supposed to mean?"

He chuckled half heartedly. "just that i am pretty sure me and paps would have missed a few meals here or there if you had been raising us by yourself. i remember a few times were you forgot to come home on your own and he had to go hunt you down so you could read us our bedtime story."

"Okay, point, but I am still pretty sure I could have managed to raise to both just fine on my own."

"if you say so…" Sans looked off in the direction of Hotlands proper nervously. "whatever usually kills them before my stand in hotland should be coming up now…"

"If we jump back in time I am going to go see Papyrus."

Sans nods in understanding. "yeah, that sounds goo-"

You were in the middle of the field again holding the flower crown. A thought crosses your mind as you go to set it down. It _was_ an Echo Flower crown…

You set the crown down as Undyne calls out to you and teleport away. You had another son to talk to.

Papyrus took a little time to find. Thankfully, you found him by himself. "Papyrus!" You winced internally at your lack of self restraint when it came to talking to him. Unlike Sans, who had been physically popping in and out of your personal prison, you had not seen Papyrus in person in years.

He, of course, did the natural thing to do when a skeleton pops in existence next to you shouting your name; he screamed and threw the closest thing to him at you. The former snowpoff, now snowball thankfully didn't hurt. The 30G inside did. "Ow."

"SANS! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT USING SHORTCUTS TO-" Papyrus finally seemed to register that: one, you were the same height and two, he had actually hit you. "YOU AREN'T SANS?"

You brushed off the snow from the front of your now Void black lab coat. "I shouldn't think so. I am not sure how that would work what with me being your father and all but given how screwy the timeline has gotten I wouldn't be surprised if that is true somewhere or would it be when…"

Your musings on the possibilities of the many AUs created by the fan base of the Game being real are interrupted by a startling quiet noise from Papyrus. "Why did I forget when you left?"

You sigh. "The best I can tell, I was more or less erased from the timeline when I, for a lack of a better way of putting it, exploded."

He shook his head and returned to a more normal pitch for him. "THAT ISN'T WHAT I MEANT. I WANT TO KNOW WHY I CAN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING BEFORE YOU LEFT? ONE OF FIRST THINGS I REMEMBER I WAS - AND SANS WAS TELLING ME YOU WERE GONE. BEFORE MY MEMORIES STARTED WITH ME WALKING AROUND NEW HOME, THERE ISN'T ANYTHING THERE. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY I WAS IN NEW HOME."

"You had been going the school like Sans should have been. He had decided to skip and followed me to work. He only remembers so much because he was there." You pause as you considered the real issue he brought up.

 _'How to best phrase this…'_

 **"I would bring up the whole boss monster thing."**

"I think you don't remember anything because you're SOUL was more connected to mine then most monsters. On top of being boss monsters, you and your brother were not born in a typical fashion. Nor, frankly, was I."

"WHAT-?"

"You and your brother are semiartificially created SOULs. Of course, part of your SOULs ended up coming from me but the two of you started out as my attempt to create a Human SOUL from scratch."

"WAIT? DOES THAT MEAN I'M NOT REAL?! HAVE I BEEN LIVING A LIE?!"

"No no no! Calm down. You are definitely real Papyrus."

"BUT YOU JUST SAID MY SOUL WAS NOT REAL! HOW CAN I BE IF IT ISN'T?"

"Clearly I need to work on my phrasing…"

 **"Clearly."**

"What I meant was that the way I made both of your SOULs was not natural. I used science to more or less create the two of you from only slivers of my own SOUL."

That, thankfully, seemed to calm him down. "OH. WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY SO?"

"I had thought I did. You have to keep in mind, I was the Royal Scientist for well over a century. Not that I really was ever remotely qualified for the job." You still wondered what on Earth Asgore had been thinking.

"WELL IF YOU ARE AS SMART AS SANS CLEARLY IS THEN YOU WERE DEFINITELY THE BEST MONSTER FOR THE JOB. IF ONLY SANS WASN'T SUCH A LAZY BONES, HE COULD BE WORKING WITH DR. ALYPHS RIGHT NOW."

"Papyrus, your brother isn't lazy. Apathetic, yes, but not lazy. I have been afraid he was suffering from depression since before my accident. He seems to have only gotten worse."

That seemed to deflate him. "I THOUGHT AS MUCH. I WAS JUST HOPING IT WAS LAZINESS AT FIRST WHEN I DIDN'T REMEMBER ANY DIFFERENT BUT HE HAS ONLY GOTTEN WORSE AND WORSE. I'M SCARED THAT IF I TRY TO CONFRONT HIM ABOUT IT HE WILL LASH OUT AND EITHER HURT HIMSELF OR ME…"

"Which would amount to the same thing."

He nodded glummly. "DO YOU KNOW WHY HE IS ACTING LIKE THIS? YOU SAY YOU'RE OUR DAD, RIGHT. EVERYTHING YOU'VE SAID SO FAR MAKES SENSE SO YOU MUST KNOW THE REASON. RIGHT?" Your SOUL hurt at how completely lost he sounded.

You let out a small sigh. "Do you remember Sans's special talent?"

He looked slightly puzzled. "WHAT DO HIS SHORTCUTS HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?"

You shook your head. "Not that one."

"SLEEPING IN HARD TO REACH PLACES OR DO YOU MEAN HOW HE CAN SEEM TO LIVE ON JUST THAT AWFUL GREASY FOOD FROM GRILLBY'S?"

"I'll take that as a no then? I was referring to his ability to CHECK SOULs as if he was in a FIGHT at any time."

"THAT'S SPYING!"

"From what I can tell, he can't control it. It seems to be something he is always just passively doing."

"I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS BUT CONTINUE."

"I have always suspected his depression was tied to that ability since, once you were both old enough to understand what LOVE stood for, his HP started to drop. It wasn't hard to put two and two together over the years. Since then I also died right in front of him more or less and everyone forgot everything to do with me. And subsequently the two of you."

"IS THAT WHY WE HAD NOWHERE TO LIVE BACK WHEN YOU VANISHED?"

"We had been living with my boyfriend so I am still not sure why the two of you didn't get to keep living there. I forgot to ask Sans when I saw him a little bit ago."

"I DON'T KNOW. THAT WAS A PRETTY STRANGE WEEK. SANS REFUSED TO TAKE ME BACK TO SNOWDIN AFTER HE FOUND ME WANDERING AROUND NEW HOME, LOST. HE KEPT SAYING THAT DAD, KING ASGORE AND SOMEONE HE CALLED THE OLD LADY WOULD KILL HIM IF HE FOUND OUT WHAT HE DID TO 'POPS.' WE SPENT THE WHOLE WEEK IN WATERFALL HANGING OUT AROUND THE GARBAGE DUMP. IT WAS SURPRISINGLY LESS HORRIBLE THAN IT SOUNDS."

"So Grillby didn't kick you out then? Sans just panicked and never tried to talk to him. I...am not that surprised actually. Avoiding the problem and hoping it goes away sounds like pretty normal behavior for him." You finally registered the face Papyrus was making. "What?"

"GRILLBY? DOES THAT MEAN…?"

"That you grew up eating his food? Yes. He didn't make bar food for all of us to eat most the time though since that is what he cooks most of the day. Trust me when I say his cooking is better then mine."

"...I DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS."

You finally registered that you had passed the point of the past several resets without time skipping a while ago. Well that was at least something. "Would a plan to cheer Sans up make you feel better?"

That seemed to cheer him back up. "WHAT WOULD I HAVE TO DO?"

"Okay, so the plan basically goes like this..."

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Oh, hey, a chapter. We are still on hiatus though for different reasons then originally planed. The internet in my area with my provider has become really unreliable so we are staying on until that hopefully gets fixed. If that doesn't change by December 1st however I will just have to change WHEN in the day I upload these chapters. This is going up so late in the day since that is when I can sometimes get on. Also I am considering removing the Lost Chapters and putting the extra chapters where they belong. I have a plan for a follow up to this fic and having the Lost Chapters thing might just be more confusion then it is worth._

 _So lots of stuff happened here and yet nothing really at all did. For those of you trying to track the Player, they were dying repeatedly to the lasers. But I am sure most of you aren't. At the end here they have just about finished fighting Guards 01 and 02. Sans and Papyrus now know stuff and it is clear now that they are both clearly more aware of their surroundings then Gaster is. Both need hugs but that will have to wait. We have a small child to try to save._


	41. Heartbreak

You raised your hand to open the door to the bar. Again.

 **"Stars! Just go in already!"**

 _'I'm going!'_ Your hand remained rigidly in air.

 **"Move!"**

 _'I'm going too!'_

 **"No you're not!"**

 _'Yes I-'_ The door flew open to reveal the Dog couple. You stepped aside to let them pass and forced yourself into the bar. Grillby had spotted you from the bar. There was no more running without making a complete fool of yourself.

You nervously walked to the bar and Grillby. "Uh...Bloody Mary please?"

Grillby looked half bemused and puzzled. "What is with skeleton monsters and tomatoes? It will be just a moment."

You hadn't even thought about the fact Sans had been steadily drinking his ketchup supply for the whole of your absence. You opened your mouth with a small smile to respond when a voice to your right cut you off.

"He said it will be just a moment." It was the red bird like monster. Oh right, most monsters couldn't understand Elemental. Grillby had never really spoken English well so the fact one of his patrons would act as a translator never occurred.

"I know. I speak Elemental just fine." Grillby nearly dropped the glass he was grabbing as he fumbled it in surprise at that statement.

"You what?"

"Sans and Papyrus probably inherited my love of tomatoes. Though Sans admittedly takes it a bit far."

Grillby's flames danced through a multitude of different colors as different emotions played out in his system. You decide to reach over the bar and grab a bottle from under the counter. You were half disappointed to find a glass ketchup bottle. You put it back and tried again. Whiskey.

 **"That's better."**

You gently take a shot glass out using your magic. Grillby hadn't moved much around in the past few years it seemed. You poured a shot and downed it. "So you don't remember me obviously. If you did, when Sans and Papyrus vanished for a week to Waterfall you would have called the Guard to look for them. I just want to know if any of our belongs are still here. I am fairly certain Sans didn't come back for anything since he was freaked out by what was going on but did you throw any of it away?"

You honestly had no idea how you felt about Grillby anymore. You had been so angry with him for abandoning the boys but Sans was just as much at fault for that as he was. You also missed him but without his memories of you, you knew your relationship would just fall apart.

Grillby settled on hurt confusion. "I have a few boxes of things that I am not sure where they came from. Mostly clothes that wouldn't have fit me or my niece."

 _'Niece?'_

 **"Grillby told Fuku to just call him Uncle since the whole second cousin thing was hard for the kid to understand, remember?"**

"Oh, right, Fuku. How is she doing?"

"She is just got out of stripes…" His flames flickered in slight discomfort as he lead you through the fire door.

"Shit, I am making this weird aren't I?" You raked a hand over the crack on the top of your skull in a bit of a nervous tick.

"Honestly, if you really are Sans's father, I would expect nothing less. I have learned it is best to just try to roll with the things he and his brother do and not ask too many questions." Grillby pulled a few boxes out from the top of a closet.

"Well that is a habit that needs breaking. You should never stop questioning things. How else would you figure anything out about how things work?"

"Sans mentioned once that you were the Royal Scientist before Dr. Alyphs. I think I am finally starting to believe that."

Now with your arms full of boxes, you turned to leave. "Well that is good to hear I suppose. Now if you excuse me, I have several boxes worth of stuff to move into my sons' home. It was nice talking to you again…"

"Wait!" You pause for a moment to look a the flame elemental around the boxes. "How… how did we know each other? You and your sons clearly were living here but I can't-?"

"We were friends." Your own words felt like a knife to the heart. "You were letting me crash here back when the boys were just babybones since I had been living at the Labs and you never tried to kick us out. I think it was because Papyrus was the only one who would remember that we need to eat regular food and sleep regularly."

Grillby seemed to search your face for a lie for a moment before just sighing. "Whatever the truth is Gaster, I hope, you will tell me one day."

You just gave him a tight smile before teleporting away. It wasn't until you started sorting out the boxes that it clicked what he had said.

 **"He remembered our name."**

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Can we just pretend this went up last night like it was supposed to? No? Well, damn. Sorry for the slight extra delay ending the hiatus, I honestly just spaced that this was supposed to go up yesterday. This is why I had such a close together update schedule less chance of this happening. Next Friday's chapter will actually go up on Friday. At least my internet is working well enough now I am not worried about that._

 _Before you start asking a ton of questions about if Grillby does or does not actually remember, all I have to say is PLEASE wait for the next few chapters. A lot is about to happen pretty fast. We are finally coming up on the "end" of the story. A lot should explain itself within chapters of itself. Welcome to the end of the line._


	42. Final Preparations

"Huh, that looks a whole lot less impressive from the outside." You had always wondered slightly how the Flowey fight would look to the Underground as a whole. Answer: like Asgore was playing with the lights.

From time to time there would be a flash of fire but overall the fight with Asgore himself had been flashier.

"whadda mean?" You and Sans were waiting out all the resets in the Hall of Judgment so you wouldn't feel the resets as badly.

"Well, most every time I watched the fight, I _watched_ the fight. Never thought about how it must look for you out here."

"ah. i guess i get that. i would probably be watching too at this point if it wasn't for the fact i keep getting yanked back to this spot. if i want to watch i have to watch the king get killed which doesn't sit well with me."

"That has never sat well with me either. While Asgore and I might not have been getting along well anymore, we were friends at one point. Seeing him murdered so frequently hurt."

"yeah, it hasn't been great." Sans turned and watched as the lights finally stopped. "looks like we can move after the next one."

"Finally. I need to go start prepping things for hopefully ending things."

"you should have plenty of time to do it. they put off the date with undyne this time so they are going to have to do that before they go down to the true labs."

"Good to know." You felt the familiar flicker of timeline as the reset triggered. "I will see you and your brother after you've reached the surface. You remember the plan?"

"yep. how much of what is going on did you explain to paps anyways?"

"Enough." And on the note you teleported down to your old office.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Guess what time it is? STRAW POLL TIME! As some of you remember, we have done this before to decide where the story heads next. This one is not changing the story itself just the order in which it is told. In short, the next four chapters are going to be from different points of view other the good old Gaster. You are just deciding the order after the next one which will be Frisk. The poll will close not this next Friday but the Friday after when I upload the next chapter. To get to the straw poll just enter the address here without the spaces. www. straw poll . me/14574985_


	43. The Human

**Frisk POV**

The first time the thought that there might be something different about this timeline that had nothing to do with the Anomaly's control over you happened when you found the door in Waterfall. The door itself was not much to look at and had it not been for the fact that it had never been there in the hundreds of times before, you would have found it easy to forget as boring and gray as it was.

You and Chara did not fight the Anomaly as it forced you to look at the door. To your surprise, you saw the save monster inside. Chara's Uncle Gaster though they never referred to him by the title outright. He didn't always notice the two f you when you saved but when you did it was always a bit of a treat. He didn't look so great right now thought.

Looking past his current expression of blind panic, he looked… a little crazed. His hands flickered as he seemed to sign to himself in a language all his own. His eyes, which had been pretty even in sizing before now varied wildly. Frankly, he looked unhinged.

For the first time since you first saw the scientist in the Ruins, you wanted to run from him. But the Anomaly had other plans. Your feet moved forward of their own accord once more, stopping only once you had reached the crazed monster. You found yourself reaching forward to touch him, only for him to reel back and make the strangled choking noise. And he was gone. Just like the other times. Thank God.

* * *

The second time you thought something was amiss was when you next spoke with Papyrus on the phone after you got to Hotlands. Correction, it was when you didn't speak to him. Normally he always picks up unless you were in a place with no signal but that one time…

It was probably nothing. He called you back before you could give it a second try.

"ACK! HUMAN! I'M SO SORRY I LET YOU GO TO VOICEMAIL. I DROPPED MY PHONE AND IT TOOK ME A FEW MOMENTS LONGER TO ANSWER THEN I WAS GIVEN. WAS THERE A PUZZLE YOU NEEDED MY HELP WITH?"

"No." You hated having to give verbal responses. They made your throat hurt.

"IN THAT CASE, I HAVE A SUPER SECRET PROJECT I AM WORKING ON TO GET BACK TO. DON'T TELL SANS, YOU WILL RUIN THE SURPRISE."

This was different. You wondered what triggered this change. "I won't."

"GOOD. IF YOU SEE HIM, TELL HIM TO STAY AWAY FROM THE HOUSE IF YOU CAN. THE LAST THING UNDYNE AND I NEED IS FOR HIM TO TELEPORT RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF OUR PROJECT."

"Got it." You were so telling Sans about this.

* * *

"a surprise party for me? why are they doing that? me and paps don't have another birthday for what, two more months of normal time?" You had waited until your "date" at MTT Resort to break the news.

*You and Papyrus share a birthday?* Signing was definitely easier on you. It was a shame that only the Skelebros seemed to understand any of it.

"one of the many hazards of being twins." To your surprise, Sans signalled to the waitstaff to bring over drinks. His looked suspiciously acholic.

*Wai-wha-twi-how are-?*

"easy kid. maybe you should figure out what you are signing before you start trying to sign."

*How are you twins? You seem so much older?*

"we are only twins physically, mentally is anythore thing completely. about, shit, only two years ago real time paps lost all his memories and basically had to start over from scratch. between that and me remembering resets, i am a lot older than 18. if anything i would say that i am somewhere closer to my late 20s."

For the first time in awhile you felt the Anomilty take a step back from you and Chara. You, however, didn't get to take a chance to do anything about it. The feeling of it returning quickly sunk back in. *Oh.*

"yah. oh." He downed what was left of his glass. "kid. we have done this song and dance before. please, for your own sake, don't screw this up for yourself. i hate having to be the bad guy but trust me when i say the alternative is much worse." He stood up and was gone. That was odd.

* * *

The Anomaly had forced you toward Undyne's house after the fight with Flowey and the following reset. You were not expecting to find her and Papyrus there since they were clearly planning something for Sans but to your surprise there they were.

"Is Undyne wearing a flower crown?" It appeared so. She and Papyrus were struggling with her piano through her front door.

"UNDYNE? REMIND ME WHY WE DON'T JUST USE THE PIANO FROM YOUR PUZZLE FOR A WHILE?"

"Come on Papyrus! Don't be such a wimp! My baby grand sounds better anyways!"

"WHILE I DON'T DISAGREE, I AM JUST NOT SURE WE CAN FIT IT THROUGH THE DOOR WITHOUT TAKING THE LEGS OFF OR BREAKING YOUR HOUSE AGAIN."

"We got it in just fine, we can get it out just fine!"

Finally, Papyrus spotted you. "OH! HUMAN! HAVE YOU COME TO HELP?"

"The Human! Where!" Undyne immediately dropped here end of the piano with a deafening keyboard smash to pull out one of her spears.

"UNDYNE! THE PIANO!"

"SHIT! THE PIANO!"

"UNDYNE! SWEAR JAR!"

"I just broke my piano! Can't you let me off this once!"

"THE HUMAN HEARD YOU."

Undyne seemed to suddenly remember you again. "You made me break my piano!"

*Actually you just broke your piano yourself.*

"What the hell does all of that even mean!"

"THEY JUST SAID 'YOU JUST BROKE YOUR PIANO YOURSELF.' WHICH IS TRUE. YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DROP IT."

Undyne looked back and forth between the two of you. "Wait? Those gestures actually are words? I thought they were just making fun of me the whole time."

"IT'S CALLED SIGN LANGUAGE. ACCORDING TO SANS, OUR FATHER'S PRIMARY FONT WAS A FORM OF SIGN."

*Really?*

"YEP. WINGDINGS. IT IS A BIT HARD FOR NON SKELETON TO READ I HEAR."

Undyne was now staring at Papyrus like had grown a second head. "Wait. Your old man is the mysterious former royal scientist Alphys has been trying to figure out the notes of for the past two years?"

"MAYBE? SANS DID SAY HE WAS THE ROYAL SCIENTIST BEFORE HER ONCE AND MOST OF HIS NOTES WE HAVE AROUND THE HOUSE ARE INCOMPLETE THOUGHTS AND IN WINGDINGS I THINK."

"So, let me get this straight, not only has she been working with your father's notes. She has been working with your father's incomplete notes?"

"SANS TOOK MOST OF HIS THINGS WHEN OUR FATHER VANISHED SO MOST LIKELY?"

Undyne leaned against the remains of the piano for a moment and took a moment to take a deep breath. "Human, I am going to write a letter to Alphys really quick. Could you deliver it for me?"

You nod. Huh. No dates with either Undyne or Alphys this time it seemed.

She stomps inside and returns shortly afterwards with an envelope. And off to Hotlands you go.

* * *

Alphys does not open the door after reading the letter. You end up waiting about twenty minutes before you get the call to go down into the True Lab. You wish you could say you are surprised that it is a bit different going down there, but with all the changes since the door, you aren't.

All the doors are open when you enter so you just walk straight back to turn on the power again reactivate the elevator. There are a few clean trails in the dust but they are faint and the Anomaly must not have noticed in the dark since they don't investigate. And then you are gone to the end. Again.

Maybe, this time it will stick.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Finally coming up on the end of this REALLY long plot line. It is about time. I want to go back to the fluff already. Small child fluff had to be skimmed a lot to get this far before now but no longer. But we still have to get to the surface again. Just a reminder that there is poll to decide the order of the next three chapters. So far it looks like it will be Undyne, then Papyrus, and then Sans but that could change by next Friday. To get to the straw poll just enter the address here without the spaces. www. straw poll . me/14574985_


	44. The Crown

**Undyne POV**

You couldn't believe the **_nerve_** of that **_Human_**! Throwing all those wild mostly likely obsensene Human gestures just to taunt you. "AUGH!"

You tossed a spear at one of the cave's many natural pillars as you stormed down a natural path. It spilt neatly in two. Like it was supposed to. Not block your attacks, dodge one turn and book it. Like that **_Damn_** kid.

The tunnel finally opened up on one of many fields of echo flowers. There was a skeleton in the distance but he was hard to make out which of the brothers from here, though going off height, it was probably Papyrus. "Hey!"

Huh. He teleported away right as you started to wave him over. Must have been Sans after all. You wondered what he had been standing on to get the extra height. Lacking anything better to do now that the Human was beyond easy reach, you waded out into the water. After a few slow minutes of cursing as mud sunk into your armor, you found the rock that Sans had clearly been standing on. And the flower crown.

"Geeze Sans, I had no idea you were into girly stuff like this." You gently picked it up and placed it on your currently naked head.

 _"You should go see what Papyrus is up to."_

You jump and then slap your forehead. "Echo flower crown, dumbass." You shake your head. "Okay, Sans, I will play along. Let's see what your brother is up to." After attempting to wade free of the flowers and mud, you change your mind. "Okay, home first, change clothes, then Papyrus."

* * *

You were surprised to hear shouting coming from inside the Skeleton Household's two story house as you walked into Snowdin. Not that shouts themselves were odd normally but the time was. Papyrus should have been on his patrol still. Just another thing to chalk up to the Human you supposed.

The door flew open before you could even knock. "UNDYNE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? I WAS JUST ABOUT TO COME FIND YOU TO ASK FOR YOUR HELP ON SOMETHING."

"Sans left me a message saying as much." You pointed to your crown.

"SANS LEFT-?"

"Oh that was me. Don't worry, Sans is still in the dark about the party." You looked past Papyrus to see _another_ skeleton of about equal height taking stuff out of a box. You blinked and he was gone.

"Who-?"

"OUR FATHER APPARENTLY? I AM STILL NOT ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SURE ON THE MATTER BUT MOST OF WANT HE SAYS ADDS UP AND HE _IS_ A SKELETON. I STILL PLAN ON ASKING SANS WHEN I SEE HIM THOUGH." Papyrus scratched the back of his skull. "STILL SEEMS NICE WHEN HE ISN'T-" He cut himself off as his _possible_ father reappeared. "ARE YOU SURE HE DOESN'T KNOW?"

The other skeleton turned from the box as if he hadn't just vanished for about three minutes. There was something _wrong_ about him. Just looking at him properly just made your SOUL crawl. His skull was melted and wasn't. It was cracked in two spots (one above the right eye and the other below the left) and yet it wasn't. He had two normal arms in two normal black cloth sleeves that ended in two hands with holes drilled in the palms and yet he had no arms but many hands with holed palms. This wasn't a monster. This was a Monster.

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Of the 20 of you that voted, 14 of you picked Undyne. With 4 of the remaining 6 votes going to Papyrus, he is next. This worked out well because I had hoped to put Undyne before Paps but I could have just skipped around more if you guys had reversed it._

 _Going to be honest, It is always a bit odd writing chapters with Gaster in them when it isn't his POV now. It is good getting the outside perspective from time to time but still odd. Expect more of this until the Gaster POV picks back up in a few chapters._


	45. UNDYNE! SWEAR JAR!

**Papyrus POV**

You still weren't sure how you felt about this. On the one hand, this monster might be telling the truth about being your father, but between the odd glitching out he seemed to do and the way he was putting your SOUL on edge made you uncertain if you wanted it to be true. On the out hand, he had, outside of a few odd comments that were likely to himself, been really nice and _did_ seem to be genuinely interested in helping Sans and hearing what you had to say. It was just really odd. You decided, in the end, you would just wait until you could ask Sans about him at the party.

You really wished Undyne hadn't decided to scream and throw things at him though when she saw him properly for the first time. The monster that might have been your father, jerked back as some of the flying object passed through him and he teleported away.

"UNDYNE! THAT WAS RUDE!"

"WHAT THE FUCK EVEN WAS THAT THING!"

"UNDYNE! SWEAR JAR! AND HE MIGHT BE ALL THAT IS LEFT OF MY FATHER! SANS TOLD ME HE WAS IN A LAB ACCIDENT A FEW YEARS AGO AND VANISHED INTO THIN AIR. HE MAY NOT LOOK MUCH LIKE A SKELETON NOW BUT HE STILL IS TALKING IN BOTH OF WHAT SANS SAID WERE HIS FONTS."

"Okay. So that thing might be your old man. So what are we going to do about it."

"WE AREN'T GOING TO DO ANYTHING. YOU ARE GOING TO APOLOGIZE WHEN HE COMES BACK. IN THE MEANTIME. WE HAVE MORE STUFF TO DO IF WE ARE GOING TO GET THIS PARTY PREPPED ON TIME."

Undyne let out a groan. "Fiiinnneee. What do you need me to do."

"WELL WE WERE SETTING UP IN A ROOM IN THE PALACE WITH ASGORE'S PERMISSION. WE STILL HAVE SOME STUFF TO MOVE THERE. AND THERE IS STILL THE MATTER OF MUSIC."

"Oh I have got you covered on that!"

* * *

And that is how you ended up over at her house trying to puzzle her piano through the door. You knew from the start it wasn't going to fit. You had to take the door off to get the piano in the house in the first place but Undyne had either forgotten that or was just been suborn.

"UNDYNE? REMIND ME WHY WE DON'T JUST USE THE PIANO FROM YOUR PUZZLE FOR A WHILE?"

"Come on Papyrus! Don't be such a wimp! My baby grand sounds better anyways!"

"WHILE I DON'T DISAGREE, I AM JUST NOT SURE WE CAN FIT IT THROUGH THE DOOR WITHOUT TAKING THE LEGS OFF OR BREAKING YOUR HOUSE AGAIN."

"We got it in just fine, we can get it out just fine!"

As you shift to keep from dropping the piano you spot a familiar striped shirt. "OH! HUMAN! HAVE YOU COME TO HELP?"

* * *

You end up having to you the piano from her puzzle after all. Unfortunately you also get chewed out the whole time. "Really! Could the two of you not mentioned your old man sooner before this creepy ghost of your father turned up or you know THE LAST HUMAN SOUL! THE HELL PAPYRUS!"

"YOU SURE ARE SWEARING A LOT TODAY."

"HUH! I WONDER WHY!" She let go of the end of the piano she was wheeling and chucked a spear in frustration. "I AM THE CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD! HOW IS IT I AM AM THE LAST ONE EVERYONE FUCKING TELLS ANYTHING!"

After you check to make sure the piano won't roll away if you let go, you walk over and rest your hand on her shoulder. "THERE THERE UNDYNE. I AM SURE NO ONE MEANT TO HURT YOUR FEELINGS."

"Well I know you didn't you bonehead. You don't have a mean bone in your body. You panic if you accidentally hurt someone else."

"I DON'T PANIC. I AM JUST OVERLY CONCERNED FOR THEM." You can feel your face heating up in embarrassment.

"Papyrus. I'm going to level with you. I don't think I can ever let you join the Royal guard."

"OH." You had know this was coming for a while now but to actually heard it was a bit of a relief actually. The stress of the wait to hear her answer had been starting to wear on you and you hadn't even realized it.

"Don't get me wrong, I think you would be a great guard and all but when it comes down to it, guards have to be able to hurt people sometimes and I can't have someone who is always pulling their punches. Just look at what happened with the human. You made friends and went on a fake _date_ with it instead of capturing it to bring to Asgo-"

"I UNDERSTAND."

"What?"

"I UNDERSTAND. YOU'RE RIGHT, I DON'T WANT TO HURT ANYONE. THAT ISN'T ME. I GUESS THIS MEANS I NEED TO FIGURE OUT WANT I REALLY WANT TO DO THEN."

"What? Just like that? I thought I would have to fight you more on this."

"AND PASS UP A CHANCE TO FIND SOMETHING ELSE THAT I CAN BE EVEN MORE PASSIONATE ABOUT?"

"I had this whole speech and everything."

"OH! IF YOU WANT. YOU CAN FINISH YOUR SPEECH. BUT CAN WE FINISH MOVING THE PIANO. WE STILL HAVE A LOT OF STUFF TO FINISH UP AND ONLY A FEW MORE HOURS."

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Just a reminder. Undyne is still wearing the flower crown. She likes how it looks._

 _Just one more chapter and we will resume your regularly scheduled Gaster POV. And look continuity between the POVs. Sans is up next and oh boy am I not looking forward to finishing that one later today. It will be the longest non Gaster POV yet so I guess it is a good thing it is going last. Damn you Sans and your remembering resets._


	46. A Familiar Feeling of Vertigo

**Sans POV**

"yeah, that sounds goo-" You felt the familiar feeling of vertigo of a reset and he was gone. "-d. damn it."

What the fuck was that? Why didn't you tell him about how he had changed, because you were a bit concerned how a few other monsters might react to his whole new, two for one deal. You found the whole thing unnerving but the lack of hostility had showed in the CHECK you did on him and in his falling back into old mannerisms. It was just odd.

And probably all your fault. If you hadn't turned up in the Lab that day, who knows if this even would have happened to him still.

You reluctantly start preparing 'dogs like you had been about to do when your father showed up. Maybe the kid would want to stack them on their head again. That would cheer you up.

* * *

You were a bit surprised to hear the kid giggle as they walked up at the MTT resort, but outside of a raised brow you were not one to break script. Your father however, clearly was. As the two of you sat down the kid signed that Papyrus and Undyne were working on throwing you a surprise party and Papyrus had told the kid to keep you from finding out what they were up to.

"a surprise party for me? why are they doing that? me and paps don't have another birthday for what, two more months of normal time?"

*You and Papyrus share a birthday?* The kid had a pretty clear look of confusion as they signed.

"one of the many hazards of being twins." You spot one of the waitstaff with a tray of drinks. You might not have been overly fond of the oversized calculator but Mettaton did surprisingly know how to make really good drinks.

*Wai-wha-twi-how are-?*

"easy kid. maybe you should figure out what you are signing before you start trying to sign."

*How are you twins? You seem so much older?*

"we are only twins physically, mentally is anythore thing completely. about, shit, only two years ago real time paps lost all his memories and basically had to start over from scratch. between that and me remembering resets, i am a lot older than 18. if anything i would say that i am somewhere closer to my late 20s."

Huh. You had never actually done the math until now but yeah that did seem about right. Clearly the kid hadn't really thought about things either. *Oh.*

"yah. oh." You downed what was left of your glass. "kid. we have done this song and dance before. please, for your own sake, don't screw this up for yourself. i hate having to be the bad guy but trust me when i say the alternative is much worse." Given that you had know idea what you father was even capable of anymore.

You stood up and teleported out. You needed to find your father before he screwed with anything else.

* * *

You found him eventually in the Dump. "pops?"

"Oh!" He stood up from the junk pile he had been sorting through. "Hi Sans! What brings you out here?"

"just had a weird conversation with the kid at mtt's. you have anyong to do with a secret party for me?"

"Guilty. I needed a distraction for both your brother and the Player. If we are going to stop this all from happening again then we will need the Player to not pay to close attention to the other changes. I thought that having a whole bunch of things be different might keep them engaged enough that they don't look to closely at the important things."

"ah. so what are you really up to?"

"Why don't you pick up that box next to you and follow me back to the Lab in hotlands and I can show you." Shrugging you pick up a box of what seemed to be machine parts and watch him do the same before he vanished. Following his lead you teleport.

...And end up nearly on top on Alphys. This had always been a hazard of teleporting in tandem with your old man when you were younger. His magical 'wake' he left almost always knocked off target and into other monsters. SOULs were like rocks in the current. Normally you could see them and avoid them easily enough but when you followed you were often knocked right into them. It was annoying to everyone involved and your Pops clearly had no idea about the fact it happened.

Of course, to be fair, you hadn't realized the problem until after he had long since vanished and put 2 and 2 together. He wasn't exactly a quantum physicist.

"S-sans!"

"uh. hi alphys? this might seem like a really strange question if you haven't seen him but do you know which why my old man went?"

"He is probably down in the True Lab. O-oh! Sans! Why didn't you tell me your father was my old boss? I have been trying to solve the mystery of what happened to him for the past two years!"

"well you never asked." And with that you teleported downstairs to what Alphys had taken to calling the True Lab over the past few years.

"Ah. There you are. You get lost?"

Not one to break the news that it was near impossible to teleport to the same spot as him at the same time. "nah. thought i would say hi to alphys upstairs. have you really talked to her yet?"

"A bit. Mostly just a passing explanation of who I was and were I have been so she would let me down here in peace. She has yet to work up the courage to actually come down here and ask what I am actually working on."

"and what is that exactly?"

For the first time since you teleport down he turned from the box he was sorting through. You can very plainly see the madness dancing in his eye lights. "The DT-Extractor of course."

* * *

 _ **Notes:**_

 _Okay so when I said this would be the longest chapter I wasn't lying but I was expecting it to be twice long then I ended up being. Word count wise this is still the longest non Gaster POV but because the program I type these in randomly changed how it formats stuff halfway trough last chapter it is really messing with me. I am just never going to say anything about length of an up coming chapter unless it is proofed with a word count._

 _Since I know the whole Sans drinking thing was bothering some people and no one here goes and reads my comments over on AO3, I will explain again here. Monster legal drinking age is when ever a monster is old enough to stop wearing striped shirts since that is when they are adults. I would be odd if legal drinking age was a flat age when monsters age at different rates. Once you are and adult in their society you are an adult. Sans and Papyrus have been out of stripes for a while now since they basically emancipated themselves. Or at least Sans did it for them. They would be legally adults in two months normally anyways so it a bit of a case of spilting hairs at this point._


	47. AN: Chapter Delay

I'm sorry to do this to you guys but with what has happened in my personal life this week I will not be able to finish the chapter on time for a Friday upload today. I am not going to go into detail since I know you will just be wondering where the chapter is, but I I will say that I just am not in the right head space to work on finishing the chapter today nor was I yesterday. I will finished the chapter hopefully before next Friday. If I don't get back to it until next Thursday I might do a double upload. I will keep you guys posted. -Void


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